The Golden Flask

Chapter Ten

The innkeeper and his daughter were most efficient guides, taking Jake across a succession of open meadows and close woods in the moonlight as easily as if they were riding down city streets. The keeper, who inside had appeared anything but athletic, proved to be a considerable horseman, and his skills had obviously been passed on to his daughter.

The willingness of ordinary folk to do extraordinary things in the name of Freedom continually amazed Jake. Many times he had been helped, even saved, by some farmer or housewife, who under other circumstances might have lived the most undisturbed life since Methuselah.

While he was more than happy to take advantage of their assistance, the spy also felt some obligation to repay their kindness. In this case, it seemed to him he could do that by informing Alison of the hard dangers of soldiering, in case she should run away and try to join the army. But every remark he made as they rode was answered by some optimistic comment. She loved the mud; she could exist for weeks on gruel; the damp earth invigorated her when she slept. She was three times as tricky as any boy, and able to hold her own should it come to that.

Jake could hear her father sighing beneath his breath; evidently these arguments had been made before.

Finally, she capped her retorts by declaring that if she couldn't join the line and march, then certainly she would become a spy such as her new friend, who was obviously not subject to the deprivations he was boasting so strongly of.

"I wonder, have you ever met Abigail Adams?" Jake asked, huffing a moment as he muscled his horse over a hedge.

Alison cleared the obstruction without the slightest exertion, and answered that she had not.

"You would like her. She is a Boston lady with ideas as bold as yours and wit twice as sharp."

"Then we shall have a pleasant time shooting redcoats together," retorted the girl.

The trio passed over a large creek and found a wide road. They traveled along it briefly, then crossed back into a cultivated cornfield and found an old path through a fallow field. The moon, missing only the slightest sliver, illuminated their way so completely they left the torches the innkeeper had prepared unlit.

The keeper had stuck an old, rusty sword in his saddle scabbard. Alison had been allowed to wield the blunderbuss. She rode with it across her saddle, half-cocked. Her father had made her take the precaution of securing the lock mechanism with a twig that prevented accidental firing; he claimed that it was faulty and given to slipping. Twig or no twig, Jake made sure to stay out of the line of fire.

Jake's ribs had long since given up complaining about the jostling they were taking, settling for a long and constant groan nagging at the back of his chest. The horse Eagleheart had sold him was a strong beast, powerfully winded, but far from the smoothest platform to ride on. Jake soon began to believe the horse understood English: while she would fight the hard pulls of his arms and legs, she moved quickly to the right and left when directed to do so by voice only. And when he said "whoa," the horse stopped short before he could pull the reins.

"Aye, trouble ahead," said the keeper, who had spotted the figures by the bridgehead the same moment Jake had. "Don't think they'd be on our side."

"You'd best go back," said Jake. "Thank you for your help. I can find the river from here; it won't be far."

"We can't leave him, father," said Alison.

As Jake was starting to assure her he would be fine, one of the sentries shouted at them. His stiff English accent made it all too clear whose side he was on.

"Let's go," said Jake, turning his horse to lead the retreat northwards. But the beast had taken no more than two steps when shots rang out. From the corner of his eye, Jake saw Alison's mount fall.

"Keep going!" he shouted to her father. He sailed around, pulling his pistol and sword out as he jumped down. He fired as he ran to the girl.

The men on the bridge were part of a detachment of His Majesty's marines, who had come ashore and moved a mile inland to prove the general principle that they could go anywhere they wanted. The figures on horseback were the first rebels — the first people — they'd spotted all evening, and the British advanced from the bridge with the enthusiasm of a gambler who has waited for the cocks to appear all night.

Jake's shot caused them to pause briefly and reload for a fresh volley. Fortunately, it was not concentrated nor well aimed, and Jake was able to duck it by flinging himself into the dirt.

The girl had taken cover behind her fallen horse. As Jake crawled toward her, he saw several other figures heading for the bridge, their shadows thrown forward by a signal fire.

The vanguard meanwhile made sure their bayonets were fixed and commenced a charge. They covered the ground quickly enough to make the god Hermes jealous. When the keeper saw them advancing on his daughter, all instinct of prudence and caution flew from his head. He took his sword and began flailing it like the Grim Reaper as he charged past Jake and Alison. He caught one of the marines straight across the neck, slicing the man's head clean off. The head flew through the field like a pumpkin kicked from the vine, while its late body staggered forward a few grotesque steps before collapsing.

As the keeper regrouped, he felt a sharp prick in his side. Thinking it no more than a splinter, he steadied his horse in front of Jake and Alison and told them to run while he held off the advancing knot of marines.

The Britons' shouts of attack were drowned out by the sound of the blunderbuss, which exploded with the deep crackle of a light cannon. Alison had handled her gun as well as any hard veteran of the Connecticut line, waiting until the last possible moment and bowling over the tight clump of lobstercoats charging against her father. Four or five figures collapsed in a great tumble of hot death, their thirst for blood quenched forever by their own.

Only one redcoat from the vanguard escaped unscathed. He had already turned his attention toward the girl, and now charged bayonet-first, aiming to avenge his fellows. Jake managed to knock him off balance by diving at him with the sword, striking his bayonet with a sharp crash.

The Briton rolled to the ground but quickly recovered, wielding his Brown Bess in time to ward off a second blow, so expertly that the short sword flew from Jake's hand.

A quick slash and the silvery blade of the bayonet nicked through the patriot's hunting shirt, catching his ribs and tickling the recently healed wounds. Jake fell to the ground with the pain, and the marine kicked him in the side before heaving the gun back for a fresh thrust.

The marine shouted as he prepared to make his murderous stab. His high note of glee broke into a shocked riff of surprise and pain. Alison had exchanged the discharged blunderbuss for a knife she kept secreted at her waist and sprung on the man like a badger defending her young.

The wound she inflicted was no more than superficial, but its timing was critical. Jake flew to his feet and grabbed the man by the neck, pulling him with such force that the redcoat lost his will to fight as well as his weapon. As Jake pulled his arm around the man's neck, Alison picked up the marine's bayonet-tipped musket and skewered him. He fell to earth with a dying gasp.

War is never a pretty sight, especially at close range. Both Jake and the girl were splashed full with blood. But Alison stomached it as easily as Jake, and had he the leisure, he might have commented on her bravery.

He did not. A new volley sounded over their heads as the reinforcements from beyond the bridge charged into the field to renew the assault. Jake led Alison toward the spot where he had left his mare; the horse stood calmly by, gently nickering that her owner had best get a move on.

Alison's father, in the meantime, had been dashing on horseback to and fro, his sword flashing as he made sure the fallen redcoats would rise no more. Fresh out of opponents, he followed to where Jake was pushing Alison aboard the horse.

By the time he arrived, he was gripping his own mount's neck. He waved them forward, telling them to hurry and escape before the reinforcements caught up.

"Father!" Alison shouted. "What's happened?"

"I'm all right, all right," mumbled Brown. In fact, he was anything but. He fell over from his horse, landing in a heap as his bloody sword dropped nearby.