The Blooding. James McGee

had reached the horses. Untying them, he hooked the musket strap over his shoulder, grabbed the reins of the nearest one and vaulted into the saddle. “Hurry!” he called.

      The pikeman had made up ground and drawn ahead of the second trooper. As his attacker ran in, it struck Hawkwood that the pike looked ridiculously long and unwieldy and not the ideal weapon to grab in the heat of the moment. Presumably this was one of Colonel Pike’s men, and he’d been trained to reach for his pike the same way a rifleman was drilled: when reveille or the alarm sounded, it wasn’t your breeches or your boots or even your cock you reached for. It was your “BLOODY RIFLE, you idle bugger!”

      That would certainly explain why this particular trooper had on his breeches and his boots and an under-vest, but no shirt or tunic. Not that his attire was of any interest to Hawkwood, who had his hands full trying to avoid being spitted like a hog on boar hunt.

      In a three-rank advance and as a defence against cavalry, the pike was moderately effective. But when it came to close combat, if you didn’t incapacitate your target with your first thrust, you might as well be armed with a warming pan. As his enemy rushed at him, pike held in both hands, Hawkwood did the one thing his opponent didn’t expect. He attacked.

      The trooper was already committed and it was the pike’s length that was his undoing; that and the fact that Hawkwood had reached the trees. The closeness of the trunks left no space to manoeuvre such a cumbersome weapon. As the pike-head jabbed towards him, Hawkwood darted inside his attacker’s reach, clasped the weapon with two hands – one either side of the trooper’s leading grip – and rotated the shaft downwards, away from his opponent’s hips. Caught off balance, the pikeman’s only recourse was for his left hand to let go, allowing Hawkwood to gain control of the weapon, twist the shaft out of the pikeman’s right hand and drive it back up into the trooper’s throat.

      As the pikeman went down, Hawkwood heard Lawrence yell. He turned to see the second man had caught up and was charging in, his pistol raised as a club.

      He was less than ten paces away when Hawkwood hurled the pike.

      It had been an instinctive act, but the consequences proved catastrophic for his attacker. The length of the pike meant it did not have far to travel. The running man stopped dead, his face frozen into a mask of disbelief as the steel tip sank into his chest. Dropping the pistol, he fell to the ground, hands clasped around the wooden shaft protruding from his body.

      There was a scream of rage as Sergeant Dunbar saw his men dealt with so comprehensively. And then Lawrence was there with the horses.

      “Move your arse, Captain!”

      Grabbing the dead man’s pistol and thrusting it into his coat pocket, Hawkwood threw himself into the saddle.

      Behind them, Dunbar, fighting for breath after his exertions, had fallen to his knees.

      Lawrence turned as Hawkwood found the stirrups and brought his mount under control. “Which way?”

      Hawkwood quickly surveyed the bodies of the two troopers and the dark figures running about the parade ground like demented termites. The cantonment appeared to be in total disarray.

      “North. We head north.”

      Lawrence grinned. “Excellent! After you!”

      “Yes, sir, Major!”

      As they dug their heels into the horses’ sides, Hawkwood couldn’t help but grin in return. Relief at having accomplished what he had set out to do was surging through him. And the only cost had been a hat. A more than fair exchange for the freedom of one British officer, in anyone’s book.

      Especially as he’d hated wearing the bloody thing anyway.

       4

       May 1780

      From his vantage point at the head of the column, Sir John Johnson turned to view the ranks of uniformed men marching in file behind him. They were a formidable fighting force, as good as any he’d served alongside; tough, fearless and loyal, he was proud of each and every one of them. When the right men fought for a cause, he thought as he gazed at their gritty, determined faces, they were well nigh unstoppable.

      It was approaching midday and though the forest canopy provided a welcome shade, it was still oppressively warm. Ignoring the sweat trickling down the inside of his tunic, he addressed the man riding by his side. “How are they faring, Thomas?”

      Captain Thomas Scott turned and looked over his shoulder, beyond the first phalanx of troops, to where a string of tired-looking civilians could be seen emerging slowly from around a bend in the trail.

      “A few more blisters, a sprained ankle or two; nothing too calamitous.”

      “The surgeon’s taken a look?”

      Scott turned back. “He has. He tells me we won’t have to put any of them out of their misery just yet.”

      “And the prisoners?”

      “Cursing your name with every breath, sir.”

      Johnson smiled. He’d become used to his second-in-command’s dry sense of humour. Scott, a former lieutenant in the Company of Select Marksmen, had been assigned to the expedition by Governor Haldimand. Even though their time together had been short, the two officers had formed a strong bond.

      “Splendid! I’d feel insulted if they weren’t.”

      Scott returned the smile, shifted in his saddle and winced. The colonel and he were the only officers on horseback; their mounts had been donated by a Loyalist sympathizer whose farm lay adjacent to the invasion route. Neither of the animals had taken kindly to having a new rider and it showed in their skittishness. To add to his discomfort, Scott, unlike his colonel, was not a natural horseman.

      “We’ll take a rest,” Johnson said, reining in. “Thirty minutes. It’ll give the stragglers a chance to catch up. Pass the word. Deploy piquets. The men may smoke if they wish.”

      “Yes, sir.” Hoping his relief didn’t show, Scott turned his horse about and trotted back down the column to relay the order.

      The colonel rested his hands on the pommel. Taking a deep lungful of air, he let it out slowly and gazed about him, first at the forest and then at the trail running through the trees ahead of them. Though it was referred to as a road, the description was a misnomer. In reality it was no more than a rough dirt track; for the most part wide enough to accommodate a heavy wagon or half a dozen men marching abreast, but here and there, in short stretches where the path had become overgrown, there was hardly room for two men to walk side by side.