The effects of their homemade concoction were devastating — inside an hour the prisoners had melted into haphazard piles on the ground, as dead to the world as if run through with bayonets. Jake resolved to find the man responsible for the formula, and put him to work for the patriot cause.
Tomorrow. For now, he had things to do.
The plan was simple — sneak out, double back down the road to the point where van Clynne was waiting two miles away, tell the squire everything he knew of the scheme against the chain, and then come back and rejoin the sleeping prisoners. "Rescued" with them in the morning, he would be united with Busch just in time to sabotage his plans personally. That would still leave Jake three whole days to return to Albany with his message for Schuyler.
Jake's Dutch companion knew of a cosmic law to the effect that the simpler a plan sounds in outline, the more difficult it is to execute. Fortunately, van Clynne was not there to spread this particular wet blanket, and Jake was free to concentrate on the first leg of his plan with as much optimism as could be mustered in a room full of snoring drunks. He rose quietly, and made some movements he meant as decoys; finding no reaction, he walked to one of the piss buckets and relieved himself, taking a circuitous route back with still no sign that anyone else was awake. When a short burst of "Yankee Doodle" failed to raise a reaction, he decided it was time to leave.
How to go? The boards on the side windows were secured with enough nails to lay ten good-sized floors. The choir window, on the other hand, had been left open, and provided an inviting avenue of egress, except for the barricaded doorway to the loft.
Even standing on two buckets, the six-foot-two patriot couldn't quite reach the choir's bottom beam. Jake jumped, but his fingertips just barely grazed the wood before he fell back down to the ground. A second jump ended with similar results, except that he began to feel a little tenderness in his knee.
Two attempts launched with a running start got him closer, but it wasn't until he placed a discarded board from the corner on the buckets as a kind of reverse diving plank that he managed to grab hold of the thick piece of wood running along the bottom of the loft.
Jake rocked himself back and forth, building momentum for a swing over the four-foot railing. He had to let go of one hand to get enough of his body over; when he did so, he hung for a moment, his weight imperfectly balanced between his leg and his right arm.
Had the light been any better, he surely would have fallen, for he could have seen how precarious his position was. But there are certain times when it is best to operate in the dark, or at least semidarkness, and this was definitely one of them. After a breath to renew his strength, Jake pulled himself up and over the choir; he rolled as if a log clearing an obstruction.
And clanged his back on the organ chair, while simultaneously pricking his abdomen with Wedget's knife, which was tucked into his belt. How he managed to stifle a foul curse at that moment remains one of the great mysteries of this tale.
Having attained the choir and assured himself that his wounds were only temporary if painful annoyances, Jake confronted a new problem. The window was devoid of glass, and passage through it could be accomplished as easily as one might walk through an open doorway — except that in so doing, one would fall twenty feet, directly into the lap of a sleeping sentry.
Not for the first time in his life, Jake wished for wings.
He looked upward from the window, hoping to find the roof within grasping distance. It was, had his arms been fifty feet long. Nor were the branches of nearby trees any closer. But further examination presented him with another escape route — the facade itself.
Any reader who ever has an option in this regard should choose to be shut up in a church built of stone or brick, instead of one made of wood. Wooden churches can be made to look considerably more fetching, but their sides do not present many hand- or footholds, making it difficult to climb down from second-story windows.
Which is what Jake now proceeded to do. We will not increase the suspense by telling you precisely how many times he slipped, nor mention that the sentry stirred momentarily just as he stepped out the window. It is probably of only passing interest that Jake's hands became unbearably sweaty about halfway down. But perhaps it is not completely irrelevant that his waistcoat snagged on the clapboard edging when he was but seven or eight feet from the ground, just at the moment he was pushing off the facade to jump and run for the woods.
Jake swung around crazily, caught at the middle and dangling over the ground, hanging by the barest thread in a pose more than a little reminiscent of Icarus's the second before he crashed to earth.
He nearly yelled aloud, cursing the splinter that had caught him, and asking that God himself look down and free him.
No one enjoys being left hanging, especially when it is by one's vest some feet off the ground. But how much less enjoyable is it to be suddenly freed from that position? And so one must always be careful what one wishes for — as Jake discovered in the next moment when the well-worn threads of his waistcoat gave way.
The sentry posted at the front of the church was representative of the many green recruits who made up Putnam's army. Most were brave and patriotic lads, ready to make the greatest sacrifice possible in the name of Freedom. But sacrifice on the battlefield was one thing, and discipline behind the lines quite another. The fact that he was sleeping on duty was, sad to say, typical not only in his unit but much of the service. The only thing unique about it was that he had chosen to sleep in so conspicuous a place.
And a fortuitous one, as far as Jake was concerned. For his tumble took him right into the poor man. If not nearly so cushy as a featherbed, he nevertheless broke his fall. Jake's foot struck the poor man on the side of the temple; his sleep deepened several degrees, but except for a change in the tone of his snores, there was no sign he noticed.
Jake didn't bother to ask. Quickly looking around and seeing that there were no other guards in sight, he leapt up and made a dash for the woods. Undoubtedly the other two or three militiamen who would have been posted to guard duty had chosen better places to hide while dozing — in this instance, dereliction of duty was of great service to the Cause.
We will leave Jake hurrying through the countryside while we check briefly on the man whom he is racing to meet, Claus van Clynne, The reader will recall that the Dutchman was last seen being hoisted to his feet by Major Dr. Keen's driver, Phillip Percival. In the interval, he was guided into Keen's coach at gunpoint and driven away in the opposite direction of the troop he'd led to intercept Jake.
They were now riding hastily southeastwards, toward a small cottage owned by a man named Marshad. The fellow, a country lawyer before the war, was now in General Bacon's employ as a British agent, and the house had been placed at Major Dr. Keen's disposal.
The doctor had developed a certain fondness for van Clynne, which expressed itself in the great care he took in making sure the ropes binding the squire were just tight enough to cut off the circulation to his extremities but not do any lasting harm.
He wanted that bit of fun for himself.
"One of the difficulties of operating in the wilderness is that one finds himself having to make do with expedient substitutes instead of the proper tools," Keen explained to his prisoner as they drove. "Were we in London or even New York, I might be able to offer you a proper torture. Here, I'm afraid, we'll have to lash some makeshift thing together."
"It's quite all right if we skip it entirely," said van Clynne. "I have some business to conduct, and would just as soon be on my way."
"What sort of business would that be, exactly?"
"It has to do with salt."
"Still worrying about your stolen salt? I suppose it's good to have something to divert the attention with." Keen smiled and reached down to a worn brown leather valise beneath the seat. Opening it, he examined several small bottles before settling on one shaped like an elongated teardrop. He then took a syringe from the case. The instrument consisted of a long, tapered glass tube with another inserted into the middle; a rubber piston could be used for creating a vacuum and drawing liquid out of a standing pool — or a bottle in this case, as he filled the cylinder with the liquid.
"I see that you've taken my advice and gotten rid of the hat," said van Clynne approvingly. "Now perhaps you will work on a more sensible coat. That blue is suited only for cities."
"I'm going to squirt this up your nose to achieve the most rapid effect," Keen replied, testing the pump. "It will tickle at first, but you'll soon grow to like it."
"I suppose it would be too much to ask that the experience be delayed until my head cold clears."
"Oh, this will remedy any blockage, I assure you."
Van Clynne turned his head away and tried to resist, but being bound there was only so much he could do. The liquid shot into his nasal cavity despite his efforts.
Keen sat back on his seat, watching his subject with great interest. The drug he'd administered was a particularly potent incapacitating agent, but given van Clynne's reaction to the jimsonweed dust and its belladonna, the doctor was not at all surprised that it failed to take effect immediately. His patient sniffled and wheezed, and then gave a great cough that shook the whole carriage.
"You seem to be right, sir," declared van Clynne, whose voice remained surprisingly chipper, given the circumstances. "I can breathe much more clearly. You have chased away my cold; I congratulate you fully."
With that, the Dutchman promptly fell off into stone unconsciousness.