Only one sentry torch was lit on the small barracks at the edge of town. John paused in the tree line and scanned the dark buildings looking for signs of life. He could clearly see the sentry slumped over, asleep at his post in the damp chill. Nothing else stirred. The village was quiet as a tomb. “Quick and quiet, Epona,” he whispered. “The sentry is three sheets gone, but no need to chance waking him. Let’s go around.” John dismounted and led her along the tree line and through a small cemetery to the far end. He skirted the edge of town in the dark and didn’t stop.
Cranberry Pond waited just across the Jersey line. Dense pines, rocky hillside, good cover. Epona needed water. He needed a few minutes off the road and out of the saddle. “Just a bit further.” He said the words aloud more to reassure himself rather than Epona. Both of them needed the rest, if he was being honest.
She’d been with him now for two years, bearing his weight across the war-torn landscape of the northern colonies hither and yon. She’d taken two bullets for the trouble, and John was mindful of her care. A good horse was more valuable than pounds sterling to a cavalryman. Any dragoon worth their salt could sense how their horse was feeling, and his trusty mount was flagging. “We’ll get a rest on the shore, old girl.” She gave another disapproving head shake as he rubbed his tired eyes and continued onward.
Ahead of him, the fog suddenly appeared differently. No, not fog. Steam. It rose off the surface of Cranberry Pond through the trees. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
He didn’t ride in. Not yet. Remote water drew people the same way it drew animals — predictably, and at all hours. He’d only survived this long by treating silence as something that required proof. He held still and listened past the ringing in his ears for footsteps, a branch, the sharp intake of breath that meant someone was doing the same thing he was doing.
Nothing. The pond sat quiet in its bowl of rock and pine.
For now, he was alone.
He let Epona drink and picked his spot, an area of flat ground where a crag threw a deep shadow. It was perfect for the moonlight illuminating the approaches without announcing his own position. He considered a fire briefly and dismissed it. He wasn’t staying long enough to justify the risk.
Morristown was close now. A brief rest here on the southern shores and a couple more hours of uneventful travel would find him arriving at Morristown headquarters before the camp cooks lit the breakfast fires. He sat with his back against the cold rock and let himself believe that for a moment.
Suddenly, the silence withdrew.
It was a small noise, sharp and unnatural. Even Epona stopped chewing her apple and perked her ears. The snap of a twig in the dark that did not snap on its own. She heard it, too. Was it an animal? Maybe someone from the town coming out for water? It was awfully late for that. He heard it again. More snaps with the crunching of leaves on the forest floor. It sounded larger than an animal or thirsty villager. He crouched and strained through the dim moonlight looking for the source of the sound. Then, he saw them.
Damn it all! A British patrol stomped through the woods on the northern shore just across the water from where John lie. His refuge was no longer his own. At first, he thought they were skinners or maybe highwaymen, but the flashes of red uniforms against the snow in the hazy moonlight gave their identity away. They rumbled through a game trail from the Jersey side in the same direction John was headed…
Excerpt from chapter one, Code Name: Augustine coming to you in 2026!
“Sergeant, I have a very important task which requires the strongest of constitution to execute. If it is beyond your capability or your good nature to perform, none in this room would hold you in poor regard for declining. However, if you accept, your commitment to this task must be unwavering and you must endure to the end. Secrecy will be of the utmost importance and if plans do not go accordingly, your death and perhaps the deaths of many others may very well be the result. What say you to that?”
– General George Washington to Sergeant Major John Champe
Lyle S. Russell 