The Blooding of Jack Absolute (24 page)

‘Westminster, sir? So was I.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Christ preserve me, another one,’ muttered Townshend.

Ignoring him, the soldier stepped forward. ‘You have dispatches for us?’

‘I do, sir. But I was ordered by the King himself to give them only into the hands of General Wolfe. Are you he?’

‘I am not. I am General Monckton. This is General Murray,’ the small, balding man raised a glass-filled hand, ‘and this is
General Townshend. We are Wolfe’s brigadiers.’

Before Jack could introduce himself, Townshend gave a yelp of triumph. ‘Got it!’ he cried, slapping a piece of paper down
upon the table, spinning it so Jack could see. It was a caricature in pencil, a very thin soldier in the most impoverished
of uniforms, supporting himself on a fusil. Words, too small to be read from where he was stood, were written within a ball
that emerged from his mouth.

‘There, boy! Now you’ll recognize our Alexander when you see him,’ yelled George Townshend. The spite in the voice was as
cruel as the depiction on the page. Jack, out of depth the moment he walked into the tent, was doubly drowned now. He had
no idea what was expected of him, what reaction he could give. He’d been taught that respect for your commander-in-chief was
essential. What had James Wolfe done to forfeit these men’s?

A voice came quietly from behind him, preventing any utterance. ‘May I see it?’

All turned. Stood just inside the flap, his hand still upon it as if it partly held him up, was the model for the cartoon:
James Wolfe, Commander of His Majesty’s Army at Quebec.

He hung there for a moment, regarding each of them in turn, then detached himself and moved to the table. Leaning heavily,
he regarded the cartoon in a silence that Jack was sure he was not the only one to find awkward. The length of it did, however,
give him the chance to study his new commander, to try to tally all that he had heard of the man with the reality before him.
For Wolfe had been much talked about by excited schoolboys at Westminster, at home and in the short time he’d had with the
Dragoons. Jack recalled now what Burgoyne had said when he’d first told Jack of his mission:
‘Watch General Wolfe, lad. He is ardent for glory. A necessary attribute of a successful commander
perhaps that yet can be quite a danger to his men.’
And that had confirmed what his father had said when Jack had met him once at a coffee house, the newspapers full of Wolfe’s
appointment, at the age of thirty-two to this command. ‘I know him, a little. Fought with him, at Dettingen and at Culloden
Moor.’ Sir James had placed a finger to his temple, revolved it. ‘But you know what the King said when someone was cautioning
him against making the appointment. “Mad, is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals.”’

Jack now studied the man studying his caricature. The portrait exaggerated but not much for the eyes were very small above
a long thin nose, the cleft in his chin was deep, a long, corn-pale pigtail ran from beneath a soldier’s plain hat. What the
picture could not get, being in pencil, was the extreme whiteness of the skin, emphasized by the two very red and heated patches
on the high cheekbones.

The man does not look mad, Jack thought, he looks ill. And closer to fifty than thirty.

At last, Wolfe straightened. ‘Not one of your best, Townshend.’

His subordinate would not meet his eye. ‘Just a little joke, sir, you understand, to relieve the tedium.’

‘The tedium? Ah, yes. I am sorry I have so contrived to bore you, George.’ Wolfe spoke in a flat monotone, as if the choice
of words affected their delivery. ‘But I think I may have found a way to occupy your sword rather than your pencil. Can you
be as cutting with that, I wonder?’

At this, the three men, even Townshend, became alert. Monckton, who, Jack deduced from his position at the head of the table,
had to be the senior brigadier there, spoke. ‘You refer, sir, I presume, to the plans we submitted to you these three days
past? That you graciously conceded were both sound and prudent?’

A faint smile came to the bloodless lips. ‘Sound and prudent. Now those are words to grace any hero’s tombstone, are they
not?’

‘General, we—’

‘Your plans would cost us the campaign, and the King his colonies. I have been out tonight, gentlemen, upon the river. I have
come up with a different plan. Less sound. Far less prudent.’

Townshend muttered an audible, ‘Jesus spare us!’

The bald Murray’s jaw fell open. He stuttered, ‘B … b … but, for pity’s sake, man! We all agreed upon it. Studied every other
alternative.’

‘Not every one.’

‘Then tell us, Wolfe. Tell us!’ Townshend had stood, his face a vivid red and angry contrast to his commander’s.

Yet instead of reacting to that anger, the general now glanced to his right, to where Jack stood, frozen with embarrassment.
‘And who, pray, are you?’ he said.

‘J … Jack … uh, Cornet Absolute. Sir … General! Sixteenth Light Dragoons. With messages from His Majesty. Amongst others.
Sir.’ For some reason, Jack gave a little laugh.

They all stared at him a moment. Then Wolfe spoke. ‘Absolute? Absolute? You are not … not related to Mad Jamie Absolute, are
you?’

It was not a term Jack had heard before. ‘I don’t think so, sir. My father is Sir James—’

‘Must be the same fellow. Dragoon? Cornishman?’ On Jack’s confused nod Wolfe continued, ‘Mad Jamie. Led the counter charge
at Dettingen. Saved me from a claymore at Culloden.’ The smile on his face was the first genuine one Jack had seen there and
it transformed it. ‘Damn me, if I wouldn’t rather have an Absolute from England than another hundred grenadiers.’ The smile
widened. ‘I suppose they didn’t send me another hundred grenadiers?’ On Jack’s shake, Wolfe nodded. ‘Never mind.’

‘Sir, Absolute or not, a cornet cannot be privy to what you have to impart to us now?’ Murray had moved around the table,
went to take Jack’s arm.

‘And what would that be?’

‘This new …
plan
of yours,’ Townshend added through a fixed jaw, the emphasis unmistakable.

Wolfe turned back, the smile vanishing, the red on the cheeks heightened. ‘And I will not tell you of it now,’ he said sharply,
‘for you have obviously partaken of too much of my wine and that makes you too dull to take in my commands.’ He looked around,
at each of them in turn. ‘My commands, gentlemen. I have left you without them for too long. Besides,’ and here the smile
returned, ‘I will not tell you of them. I will show you … on the morrow. We’ll go downriver with the morning tide. Be ready.
And wear civilian clothes.’ Each of the men looked as if he would protest but Wolfe went on, ‘That is all. You will now leave
me with the King’s messenger.’

There was no mistaking the firmness of the instruction. With a varying degree of reluctance – Townshend’s the most obvious
– the three men left the tent. Wolfe called out after them, ‘Gwillim?’ and an officer appeared immediately. ‘Tell Captains
Delaune and MacDonald I would see them. And Surgeon MacLeod.’

The man nodded and left. As soon as the tent flap settled, Wolfe collapsed into the chair and was immediately racked with
a burst of wet and violent coughing. Jack could not help but see that the handkerchief the general snatched out was stained
as red as his coat. He immediately filled a glass with wine and took it to the table head. Coughing subsided, Wolfe drank,
spluttered, drank again, sank back. His face was a chalky white, all the more pale for the contrasting spots that flamed upon
the cheek.

When strength had returned – a process that took some minutes – the general waved Jack to a chair and smiled. ‘Your father?
Is he well?’

‘He was, sir, when last I saw him. He has … uh, gone to Hanover, sir.’

‘Riding to the sound of the guns. Of course, of course. Jamie could not keep away. Would that he had chosen this theatre of
operations and accompanied you. The next few nights would
suit his especial brand of lunacy! You’ve always known he was mad, I suppose?’

‘With all respect, sir,’ Jack blurted, ‘he said exactly the same thing of you.’

Jack didn’t know why he said it. Maybe he just hadn’t been a soldier long enough. Maybe it was because he’d felt peculiar
from the moment he stepped ashore in this land that felt so strange … yet strangely familiar too. Maybe it was just something
in the man before him, the young man within the old.

But Wolfe, thankfully, laughed, hearty laughter that brought more blood into the handkerchief. During this burst, a man in
a blue frock coat came in and went straight to the general, wordlessly undoing the plain black stock at his neck, opening
the buttons on his shirt, rubbing some salve from his leather bag. The smell of camphor filled the tent. Wolfe gestured toward
Jack’s pouch. The dispatches were instantly spilled upon the table and the general, around the ministrations of his surgeon,
sought and discarded amongst them. The one with the Royal seal he threw down with a sigh.

‘The King will have delivered another military lecture and that I can do without. How he expects to conduct a battle from
three thousand miles away, and hoodwink as capable a Frenchie as Montcalm, when he barely succeeded controlling one when he
stood on the field at Dettingen is beyond me. Ah …’ He drew out the dispatch Jack recognized as coming from his own commander,
Burgoyne – his letter of introduction. The seal was broken, the contents swiftly scanned. Wolfe looked up. ‘He speaks highly
of you, acknowledges your courage if tempering it with your lack of experience. He says you are fast, lad.’

Jack nodded. ‘Show me the horse, sir, and I will take it to its utmost.’

Wolfe laughed, coughed. ‘The only pony you’ll find here is Shanks’s. You are the only English cavalryman in Quebec, Absolute.
Can you run?’

‘Aye, sir,’ said Jack, thinking of cricket and Tothill Fields.

‘That may prove useful.’ He glanced down, read on. ‘And you speak French, do ye?’

‘Tolerably, sir.’

‘Then you undoubtedly speak it better than most of my other officers, including myself. And that may be useful, too.’

The surgeon, who was preparing a cup of viscous fluid, now said, ‘General, you must rest.’

‘Can’t,’ whispered Wolfe, ‘Mustn’t.’ He sat up straighter. ‘I know you cannot cure me, MacLeod. But patch me up so that I
may do my duty for a few days and I will be content.’

The surgeon sighed, then lifted the cup to Wolfe’s mouth. He drank, muttered a curse, drank on. As he did, the tent flap twitched
again and the adjutant appeared again. ‘Captains Delaune and MacDonald, as you requested, sir.’

The two men entered. One, dressed as Wolfe, in simple and unadorned scarlet went straight to him. ‘Are you all right, sir?’
he said, squeezing the hand he’d taken.

‘Never better, William.’ Wolfe coughed again into his handkerchief. ‘Well, that might be a slight exaggeration.’ He gestured
to Jack. ‘Cornet Absolute, fresh off the boat from England. Captains Delaune,’ he patted the man still crouched over him on
the shoulder, ‘and MacDonald.’

The other man, small of stature and watchful, was a Highlander, complete with a kilt, stockings and a plaid cloak. ‘Absolute?’
he echoed. ‘He’s nae kin to Mad Jamie, is he?’

‘His son.’

‘May Christ defend me! The sire nearly gave me my quietus at Culloden. Does the cub come to finish the job?’

‘You’ll have to forgive Donald MacDonald,’ Wolfe smiled. ‘He fought us with the Royal Ecossais on that Moor. Then joined Fraser’s
Seventy-eighth to fight for us here.’

‘I’d little choice, ken,’ the Scotsman growled. ‘Rot in Inverness gaol or go where the fighting is. And since the cursed English
was the only ones offering …’

‘Do not mind this old Jacobite, lad,’ Delaune said. ‘He’s as loyal as any of us.’

‘More loyal than many,’ growled MacDonald. He had seen the caricature upon the table. ‘I saw that sneck-draw Townshend a-laughing
with his noble cronies. Nae doot at the general’s expense.’ He picked up the paper and ripped it savagely into several pieces.

‘His particular loyalty is to me,’ Wolfe breathed, ‘for which I am very grateful. I need men like these, young Absolute. Especially
now. Especially for this plan.’

With a wave, he dismissed the surgeon’s further fussings. The man shook his head, gathered his things and left. Delaune leaned
forward. ‘Your reconnaissance, sir … was it worth this blood?’

‘It was, William and several pints more. I have sketches.’ He gestured to his record book but as Delaune eagerly reached,
he laid his hand on it and looked at Jack. ‘You must leave us now, Absolute. Though I am sure you are discretion itself, only
these two must know of my plan till the morrow when I shall be forced to share it with my brigadiers.’

‘Of course, sir, I’ll …’ Jack saluted, started for the entrance.

‘Your time will come soon enough,’ Wolfe called after him, halting him. ‘He’s young, gentlemen, and does not know what to
expect in battle.’

‘Perfect,’ said Delaune.

‘Aye,’ said MacDonald, ‘assuming ignorance holds him, not fear.’

‘Mad Jamie’s son, Donald.’

‘Oh, aye.’

‘And he speaks French. That may prove very useful in my calculations.’

‘Do he indeed?’ The Scot stepped towards Jack. ‘
Où avezvous appris votre français, mon brave?’

‘À
Londres,
monsieur.
Avec une jeune femme de … de …
’

‘
De la nuit
?’

Jack blushed.
‘Mais non,
monsieur.
Elle était la fille d’un ami de mon père.’

MacDonald turned back. ‘He speaks like a Parisian limmer.
But with a little help he may pass muster, given muckle years.’

‘What can you manage in a day and a night, Donald?’ Wolfe’s voice came in a whisper. ‘I’ll have him billeted with you, and
you can bring him up to the mark.’

The Scot looked as if he would protest; then the import of the general’s words drew him back toward the table. As he moved
he called over his shoulder, ‘You’ll find my bivouac in the lines of the Seventy-eighth, callant. Ye can await me there.’