The Silver Bullet

Chapter Ten

Governor Carleton was no more than ten feet away when Jake realized Marie was clearing her throat quite loudly. Did she expect him to run?

No, she expected him to step forward and take the hand of the lady across from him — they were, after all, dancing.

He bowed with perfect timing, if just a bit of unnatural flourish, as Carleton passed behind him in a fury. The governor was so focused on his business that he saw no one else in the room, not the American agent or even the aide scrambling behind him. And now Gentleman Johnny was excusing himself and coming in the same direction.

Curiosity is an extreme motivator for a man in the spying profession, where naturally the mind tweaks itself toward inquiry. True, such a trait has its drawbacks, but for an agent on special services it is the engine of innumerable achievements. So it should not be surprising that Jake, having escaped discovery by the narrowest of margins, instantly decided to double the odds by following the two British officials and seeing what they might be up to. He bowed to his dancing partners, all seven of them, and excused himself, holding his hand to his stomach as if overcome by a sudden ailment. Then he made for the door as if he had taken a double dose of cathartic.

His quick exit brought him nose-to-back with General Burgoyne, who had stopped to confer with some aides near the door. Jake slipped off to the side as the general first gently criticized the men for interrupting, and then said, reluctantly, that he would go up with the governor and see what this new message was about.

The stairs were unguarded. Jake waited for the general and his minions to ascend and go down the hallway. He was after them in a flash, taking three steps at a time, checking for his pocket pistol as he climbed. Snug in his waistband, it was primed and ready; he had only to flick the safety and fire.

It was purely a weapon of last resort, since using it would draw immediate attention to himself. His weapon of first resort consisted of all his senses — hearing in particular, which led him down the hall to the secretary’s room, just outside the governor’s office. The interior chamber was closed, but even the thick door could not muffle Carleton’s loud voice as he upbraided Burgoyne.

Not upbraided, exactly; more like complained against the general’s libels and the willingness of Lord Germain to hear them.

“ My resignation is on its way to that coward Germain as we speak,” said Carleton.

“ Intemperate words,” said Gentleman Johnny. “Lord Germain enjoys the full confidence of the king.”

“ He has not changed his stripe.”

The argument continued, but Jake’s eavesdropping did not — someone was approaching down a hallway. Jake looked quickly for a hiding place, but found nothing more suitable than the underside of a large desk as an officer and a man dressed in civilian clothes entered.

“ Wait, while I get the governor,” the officer told the man, going in the meantime to the window and pulling the drapes closed. The window was right next to the desk — Jake was close enough to smell the grease polish on the officer’s boots.

“ My orders are to give the letter to the general, not the governor.”

“ The governor is still in charge,” said the officer testily. “He is waiting with the general.” He turned sharply on his heel and knocked on the adjacent office door before entering.”

Jake flattened himself beneath the desk while the messenger paced a few feet away. A canteen hung from a leather sling at his side: undoubtedly that contained whatever he’d come to deliver. But even as Jake considered the wild thought of snatching it and dashing for the patriot lines, the door to the office was reopened and the man summoned inside.

Jake got up and snuck next to the chamber to hear what was going on. Burgoyne apparently took the fact that the message was to be delivered to him personally as a veiled insult to his choice of staff officers. Carleton, for his part, was annoyed that Burgoyne and not he was the recipient. The general ripped open the letter and read it aloud, both as a feigned courtesy to Carleton and a dramatic display of trust in his subordinates.

Burgoyne’s voice betrayed some regret as he proceeded. How had made it clear that he had no use for his plans to invade New York, and indicated that he would not bother to support the action with his troops.

Jake had little time to consider the strategic import of this happy news — Burgoyne exploded in fury and led the whole mess of them, governor, messenger, and assorted hangers-on, into the secretary’s room, in search of something to write on. Jake nearly lost his eye patch to a splinter in the floorboard as he dove back beneath the desk.

“ You will deliver my message to Howe himself,” Burgoyne declared as he entered.

“ Begging your pardon, General, but that is explicitly against protocol. We have an elaborate procedure. I’ve never met Sir William; I have a staff officers I deal with, who in turn deals with another officers.”

“ If I’m good enough to be met personally, Howe is no better,” said Burgoyne. He reached over the top of the desk, hovering less than eighteen inches from Jake, and quickly wrote a note. “He’s to carry on with the offensive the way I mapped it out. The orders from England are quite explicit, even if they are worded to avoid offending his delicate sensibilities.”

Sir, again I must protest. For matters of security, I should not know what the message contains. This way, I can dispose of it, and honestly answer — “

“ What is your name and rank?”

“ Captain William Herstraw, sir.”

“ Are you always in the habit of telling your superiors their business?”

“ No, sir.”

While Burgoyne was defending his bruised ego, the other officers were shifting nervously around the room. Jakes ribs did their own shifting, trying to stifle the outraged squeaks his lungs were emitting in protest of being contorted to fit his chest beneath the desk well.

Burgoyne finished his message and straightened. Jake, sensing the session would end soon and he could escape, began to feel relief — until the general sat on the edge of the desk. The wood groaned with the weight and pressed down into the spy’s back. “Now I will tell you a bit of your business,” the general said to the messenger. “Any simpleton, even a rebel, will search your canteen for a message. You need something a bit more secretive, and easily disposed.”

“I don’t intend on being searched,” replied Haverstraw. “I travel among the rebels as a poor yeoman farmer and am never suspected.”

“Our own messengers use silver bullets,” said Carleton, with a note in his voice that meant he wanted this whole business concluded. “Captain Clark, can you prepare one for Captain Haverstraw?”

Clark — the same Clark you’re thing of, if you’re thinking he’s Marie’s — didn’t answer. Instead he walked towards the desk.

The same desk you’re thinking of, if you’re thinking of Jake’s. Jake pressed in deeper and tried to conjure some excuse, lame as it might be, as Clark approached.

Fortunately, Clark did not come around to the back of the desk, where he might have had occasion to glance down and see an unaccounted-for leg. Instead he reached over the side and pulled the drawer open — and in the process whacked Jake on the side of his skull.

Which would not have been so bad, had Jake’s wig not gone flying with the friction of the drawer.

A popular manufacturer in France once sewed small strings on his wigs. These were meant to be tied to the collar or the back of the neck, so the wig could easily be retrieved if knocked loose by the wind or some other force of nature. Surely such a device would have been a godsend for Jake at that moment. The wig was lying on the floor, positively due for discovery once the drawer was closed.

Jake strained his fingers from their sockets, grabbing at the ribbon that tied the ponytail. Meanwhile, Clark rummaged through the shallow drawer, looking for a sharp knife to open the silver ball with. He leaned harder and harder on the desk, pressing Jake’s side.

“ We use them to communicate with Sir Johnson and his Indians,” Clark said. “I only need a thin blade.”

Jake felt like volunteering his own pocketknife. Clark shook the drawer and tried opening it farther — scraping against Jake’s skull.

“ Damn drawer is always sticking. I have a penknife in here somewhere.”

By some compression of the spine that would no doubt strike an anatomist as impossible, Jake managed to duck his head down as Clark struggled with the drawer. The same motion, fortunately, gave him a better grip on the wig’s ribbon.

Which pulled look from the hair as soon as he exerted pressure.

“ Will my knife do?” volunteered on of Burgoyne’s men.

“ Yes, I think so,” said Clark, slamming the drawer shut across the top of Jake’s head.

Jake managed to whisk the wig up as the drawer closed. But what really saved him was the party’s immediate retreat back inside the chamber. Head creased but otherwise intact, Jake extricated himself and breathed as deeply as a horse, ungluing his lungs from his kidneys. Then he crept across the room, resuming his post at the door.

“ I like the idea of a silver bullet,” he heard Burgoyne say inside. “It has panache.”

“ Carleton proceeded to quiz the messenger on the situation at Ticonderoga and Albany. The man claimed there were ten thousand American troops at Ticonderoga and perhaps four or five thousand more at Albany.

Both numbers were wild exaggerations. There weren’t ten thousand American soldiers in all of New York. In fact, Schuyler would be lucky to muster 3,500 at Ticonderoga, including militia.

That’s what the British got for spying, though.

“ I’ll have nine thousand men marching with me June seventeenth,” Burgoyne boasted as the governor started to argue that perhaps his attack should be rethought in light of the rebel’s strength. “We’ll pick up many more on the way, once the colonists hear my proclamation. I’m not worried about the numbers, not at all.”

Jake silently congratulated Burgoyne for having given him everything he’d come north for. He fixed his wig atop his head, repositioned the eye patch and prepared to take his leave.

“ We will have no problem as long as Howe follows orders,” Burgoyne said. “The message is critical. The entire success of the campaign depends on it. Well, the entire success of the campaign depends on me.” The general permitted himself a polite laugh, apparently expecting the others to join him. They did not.

“ Take the bullet and go,” he told the messenger. “Leave directly.”

“ I’d hoped for some sleep, sir. My horse is tired after the long journey.”

“ Get him a new horse,” commanded Burgoyne with a snap of his fingers. “Every hour is critical. How must come north with his troops the moment I set off. Let’s go, man; this is a war, you know, not a summer party.”

The impatience of generals knows no national borders.

“ Sir, I have rode without stopping from the Bull’s Head Inn near Fort Hubbardton.”

“ What is that, the Bull’s Head? A frontier dance hall? Do they dress up their cattle and parade them on stage?” Burgoyne drew titters from his aides.

“ It is a tavern, sir,” said Herstraw tightly, trying to preserve some of his dignity. “Fortunately, the owner is secretly loyal to the king. He is a distant relative of mine.”

“ We will remember him when we liberate the area,” said Burgoyne. “Go on, march off. Go on, march off. You must be in New York City before the week is out.”

“ Sir, traveling two quickly through enemy lines attracts too much attention. It is better to seem nonchalant. And this — “

“ Leave this instant, or I will court-martial you for insubordination!”

Jake had just enough time to step back into a shadow — there was no way he was going near that desk again — when the door opened and the messenger emerged.

He was not a happy man. Dressed plainly, in a nondescript brown coat and white britches, Herstraw walked briskly through the room and stormed into the hall. Jake caught his profile as he passed — a large nose was his most distinguishing feature.

The door to the chamber closed as the general and governor renewed their discussions. Jake added one more aspect to his disguise — the slightly piqued manner of a secretary called from the dance floor to do his duty — and proceeded to the stairwell.

“ I believe the general wants to see you,” he told the soldiers who’d just taken up stations there. They obediently went off to see their master, having no reason to question a man who had obviously just come from inside.

Jake paused briefly in front of a mirror at the head of the stairs to readjust his eye patch — and watch Herstraw reach the landing. He planned on making his acquaintance very shortly — he’d tackle him outside, kill him and destroy his message. Just let the Briton get a few yards ahead so he wouldn’t suspect he was being followed, and it would be easier than any of the dancing he’d just done.

Meanwhile, Carleton was unsuccessful in convincing Burgoyne that he had overestimated the local Loyalist sympathies and underestimated the patriots. Whatever its ultimate effect on the American Cause, the failure of his argument had immediate consequences for Jake. Burgoyne stomped from the office with the governor at his heels, both men silent, though no doubt cursing each other with great vigor inside their heads. Carelton happened to look toward the stairs, which Jake was just starting to descend.

Despite the dim light, despite the disguise, despite his preoccupations, despite fortune, luck, and Providence, Carleton recognized Jake immediately.

“ Stop that man!” he yelled as loudly and indignantly as any royal governor had yelled these past three years of rebellion. “Stop him!”

Stop him! The very phrase has a certain epic ring to it, a certain correctness: one wants to be the subject of it. Great forces are set in motion with these simple words. Other cries are taken up, alarms spread. Hearts beat double and triple time. All hell breaks loose. Just the sort of thing to make your night.

Especially if you’re a spy and the halter waits as a reward for your capture. Jake leapt to the bottom of the stairs and rushed down the hallway to the ballroom. Along the way, he doffed his eye patch, most of the plasters, and his wig, in effect taking up a new disguise undisguised. Once at the entryway to the ballroom, he dodged through as politely as possible, smiling to the right, apologizing to the left, spinning and sliding as if he were being followed by no one more troubling than a dancer whose toe he had stepped on.

“ Stop that man!” Carleton shouted again as he reached the ballroom.”

“ I’ll get him Governor!” answered Jake, leaping toward the back door.

He was three steps from the doorway when he saw the soldiers who’d been posted outside coming through, bayonet points first. Jake veered to the right, looking for a suitable detour.

There were no more doors, but there were plenty of windows. Grabbing a small chair from the side of the room, Jake threw it before him, knocking the small panes of the large window in a great crash. He then hurled himself through, covering his face with his arms and rolling to the pavement, quite possibly breaking half his bones in the process.

He had no time for an inventory. Carleton had not given up his blasted shouting, and the alarm was spreading to the street and nearby environs. Jake stumbled forward to his feet, hoping for some sort of momentum to take him across the Parade Square to the Water Gate.

That would not have been a wise way to go, being that there were even more soldiers at that particular spot than any other in the city. As so often happens in such cases, however, Fortune provided for our hero, causing at that moment a large gray steed to rush across in front of him, right to left. Jake, never one to question the whims of a lady, leapt immediately to the horses back.

Fortune is not without her little jokes, however. In this case, while providing Jake with the means of escaping his pursuer, she gave him two other difficulties to contend with. Number one — the horse was being ridden by a major of the British cavalry, who objected strenuously to an unpaid passenger. Number two — the horse was heading in the direction of the boatyard, where a troop of soldiers were encamped.

The British major was undoubtedly brave and strong, but Jake had the superior motivation — he garroted the fellow with a hastily rolled handkerchief and pulled strongly to one side: when the major resisted, Jake used his weight and a kick in the horse’s flank to change their momentum. The major went tumbling overboard.

The second problem took longer to solve, partly because Jake, his head still swirling from his plunge through the window to the pavement, did not realize which way he was going. It was only when he saw several shadows looming in the dark, answering the general alarm, that he realized his mistake.

What does one say to an armed host when one’s suddenly sprung into their midst, and people running down the road are shouting various variations of “Stop that man!”?

“ Who’s in charge here? Sound the alarm! Hurry, a spy has escaped!”

And so Jake quickly rallied his pursuit, mustering the men and sending them down the quay back towards the governor’s palace, ready to shoot anything that looked vaguely Americans.

He, meanwhile, sought out something to get onto the St. Lawrence with. A small birch canoe presented itself at the end of the wharf; Jake dove from the horse into the craft, pushing off into the water in the same motion.

It would have been more convenient if the boat had paddles. Nonetheless, he was able to make decent progress by leaning over the sides and rowing with his arms; by the time they felt as if they would positively drop off, he was clear across the channel, and the confused search on the shore was just an inconvenient buzz in the background.