The Blooding. James McGee

held a knife, while his companion was brandishing a short cudgel.

      There wasn’t as much mud here as there had been on the street so the traction was better and Hawkwood’s boots gave him the grip he needed. He felt disinclined to give the pair fair warning.

      Only when they saw their victim’s eyes flicker to one side did they turn. Their eyes were still widening as Hawkwood slammed the heel of his right boot against the cudgel man’s left knee cap. The man yelped and went down, the cudgel slipping from his grasp as he clutched his injured limb. His companion immediately dropped into a crouch, the knife held in front of him. He scythed the blade towards Hawkwood’s throat.

      Throwing up his right hand, Hawkwood caught the knife man’s wrist and twisted it to lock the arm before slamming the heel of his left hand against the braced elbow. The man yelled as the bone broke and the knife joined the cudgel on the ground. Hawkwood released the arm and stepped back.

      “Your choice, gentlemen,” he said calmly, already knowing the answer. “What’ll it be?”

      The two men turned tail. At least they’ve one good arm and one good leg between them, Hawkwood thought as he watched them hobble away. He kicked the discarded weapons into the shadows and reached down to the kneeling man who stared back at him with a mixture of shock and disbelief. Gripping Hawkwood’s hand and using his cane as support he rose to his feet and brushed himself down, allowing Hawkwood a glimpse of a uniform jacket beneath the coat.

      “Well I don’t know who you are, friend, but I’m damned glad you were in the neighbourhood. The name’s Quade. Major Harlan Quade, Thirteenth Regiment of Infantry.”

      The major held on to Hawkwood’s hand.

      “Hooper,” Hawkwood said. “Captain Matthew Hooper.”

      “I’ll be damned. Well, in that case, Captain Hooper, I hope you’ll allow a major to buy a captain a drink.”

      Hawkwood ran a quick eye over what he could see of the major’s tunic and smiled. “Happy to accept, sir. It’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”

      Major Quade was currently on medical furlough from wounds sustained on the Niagara Frontier. Watching him stare into the depths of his whiskey glass, Hawkwood wondered if the major’s invitation might not have been born out of a desire for companionship rather than as a gesture to thank him for coming to the man’s rescue.

      Not that it wasn’t gratifying to be appreciated every now and again, but Hawkwood suspected it was the rye that was doing most of the talking and he’d already asked himself: if the major had been in civilian dress and had he not identified himself as a ranking officer, would he still have accepted the offer of a drink?

      Probably not, but the greatcoat and a glimpse of the uniform beneath it had made Hawkwood’s decision for him. A military man would likely have information about the disposition of local troops, and given Hawkwood’s current status as a foreign combatant on enemy soil it could prove useful to know which areas were best avoided.

      They were seated at a table in the Eagle Tavern, less than a stone’s toss from the Hudson River. It was a comfortable enough establishment, with a generous selection of liquors, a moderately civil staff and, more importantly, a welcoming fire in the hearth.

      The major had ordered whiskey and stuck to that throughout. Hawkwood had chosen brandy. The breeze that was coming off the water and eddying up the city’s streets was a bracing reminder that it was already winter. A stack of blazing logs and a warming drink were as good a way as any of keeping the chill at bay.

      The taproom was enveloped in warmth. With the combined smells of ale, tobacco and victuals and the subdued murmur of conversation permeating the tavern Hawkwood could easily have shut his eyes and imagined, if only for a few brief seconds, that he was back in London, enjoying a wet at the Blackbird Inn.

      Only he wasn’t. He was in Albany, New York, half a world away from Bow Street, trying to find some means of getting home.

      Still, he thought, at least there was one advantage to being here.

      He didn’t have to speak French.

      The voyage from Nantes to Boston had taken thirty-two days, one more than Larkspur’s skipper, Jack Larsson, had forecast and thirty-two days too many, as far as Hawkwood was concerned.

      Getting out of Paris in the wake of his last assignment had been achieved without too much difficulty but there had always been a weakness in the plan’s second stage, which had been reliant on Larkspur being intercepted and boarded by a British vessel on blockade duty, whereupon Hawkwood would have revealed his identity and secured safe passage back to England.

      Regrettably, no one had allowed for the formidable seamanship of Larkspur’s wily skipper. During the five years the blockade had been in place – which required all neutral ships to submit to a cargo inspection at a British port or be seized as an enemy vessel – Jack Larsson had accrued valuable experience in the art of outwitting the Royal Navy’s squadrons. Now that Britain was actually at war with America, he had become even more adept at avoiding detection.

      Thus Larkspur had slipped past the British patrols with ease, presenting Hawkwood with the uncomfortable realization that he was America bound.

      The one advantage of the month-long voyage was that it had given him time to gather as much information as he could on the fluctuating state of British–American hostilities.

      In Paris, up-to-date intelligence had been impossible to glean. Even though European newspapers carried accounts of skirmishes between the two sides, by the time news from the other side of the Atlantic reached the French newspapers or English ones smuggled in from London, it had to be at least six weeks out of date, if not more; which had left Hawkwood with no option but to tap Captain Larsson and his crew without arousing their suspicions.

      First he had to gain their confidence. Aided by fraudulently obtained boarding papers which confirmed his identity as one Captain Hooper – an alias he’d used to good effect on previous missions – Hawkwood had been able to pass himself off as an officer in the First Regiment, United States Riflemen, on recent detachment as an observer to a French Regiment of the Line in Spain.

      To his relief, Larsson had accepted ‘Captain Hooper’s’ patchy knowledge of the war as a legacy of his months serving with Bonaparte’s army in the Peninsula; which had left them, at least as far as Larkspur’s skipper was concerned, as fellow Americans, united in their patriotism, desirous of fresh news and looking forward to a safe return home from foreign climes.

      But while Larsson was cognisant with American naval exploits, he knew little of the land campaign; what meagre information he had on military activity on the western and northern fronts lacked credible detail. The last dispatch he’d been privy to had been dated mid-September, a week before Larkspur had sailed from Boston.

      And anything could have happened since then.

      And so, on the cold, misty morning when the dark smudge of the Massachusetts coast finally materialized over Larkspur’s larboard bow, while Hawkwood felt the relief surge through him at having made landfall, he knew he was still a long way from salvation.

      He’d accepted from the outset that another sea voyage would be an inevitable consequence of his arrival in America, but the thought of trawling the docks in search of a berth on an east-bound merchantman in the vain hope that this time the vessel would be stopped and boarded by the Royal Navy was not an option he’d been prepared to consider; once bitten, twice shy in that regard.

      The only viable alternative was to try to reach the British lines. If he could manage that, he would surely be able to secure passage to England.

      To achieve that goal, however, he’d first needed to confirm the whereabouts of the most convenient battlefront; short of enlisting, the easiest way of obtaining that information without drawing undue attention to himself was to consult the newspapers. Thus after disembarking and spending a night in a dockside tavern recommended by Larsson, his first objective had been to find the nearest