It seemed like a sound strategy. However, his wide reading in military history had left him with the disconcerting conclusion that most generals were astonished to discover their impeccable schemes for battle starting to unravel at the opening volley. With such thoughts still contending in his head, Marc sighed with relief when, late in the afternoon, he spotted in the near distance the square-log building he knew would be the popular wayside hostelry of Polonius Mitchum.
As he rode up to the primitive log structure, he found himself whistling.
TWO
We don’t get too many of your kind this far out.” The tavern-keeper chuckled as he dipped a tin cup into the barrel under the counter and poured the contents into a mug that had seen happier and kinder days. “Least not in the daylight.” His whiskers quivered to underline the wit of the remark.
Marc dropped a threepenny piece on the unvarnished pine board and stared straight ahead. “I’m on the King’s service,” he said. “I’d be grateful if you’d have your lad see to my horse. It’ll be getting dark in an hour or so, and we’ve got a ways to go yet.”
“Indeed, sir, it’s always a pleasure for Polonius Mitchum to serve a servant of His Majesty. Even though I ain’t had the honour of shakin’ his hand, I’m told the King’s a decent sort of German gentleman.”
Marc lifted his mug and took a man-sized swallow of the liquor.
Mitchum swivelled his heavy body to the right and yelled towards the curtained alcove behind him: “Caleb! Drag your lazy arse outside and see to this gentleman’s horse. Now! Before I tan the hide off ya!”
A lazy scrabbling sound was heard from the murky recesses, and a moment later a door opened somewhere and the winter wind whipped gaily through the premises. “Jesus Murphy,” Mitchum roared. He seemed about to bend his entire bulk around, then changed his mind and, instead, swept the coin off the counter and fetched up a fearsome grin. “That ain’t my lad, thank Christ, though he calls my wife ‘Mother.’”
“And this isn’t whisky,” Marc said, peering up and fixing Mitchum with a quizzical eye.
“Thought you’d never notice,” Mitchum said. “I don’t serve Gooderham’s rotgut to gentlemen of quality, and I can see plainly you are that, sir, if nothin’ else.” He reached across and laid the grubby stub of a finger on the sleeve of Marc’s tunic. “Now that’s real quality, sir, even if it do make you look as temptin’ as a guinea hen in a coopful of foxes.”
“This tastes very much like rum from the garrison stores,” Marc said quietly.
“Upon my word, young sir, you wouldn’t be accusin’ Polonius Mitchum, Esquire, of breakin’ the law or encouragin’ others less fortunate to do so?” Mitchum’s eyes bristled with friendly menace.
“I merely remarked upon a suspicious coincidence,” Marc said.
“As indeed have many of your fellow officers who are wont to frequent this establishment to quench their thirst-and other appetites.”
The rambling outhouses behind the tavern itself were reputed to be places where a libidinous bachelor with an instinct for gambling could indulge both vices with a minimum of inconvenience. Marc’s repeated refusal to join his comrades-in-arms on their nighttime excursions, out here or closer to home, was a source of wonder to them and, for a few, a cause for resentment. Marc himself could scarcely find reasons for his reserve in such matters, though the scars of a youthful romance cruelly broken up had not perhaps healed as fully as he had hoped.
“Even so,” Marc said to Mitchum after finishing off his draught, “the importation of Jamaican rum into the province, directly or surreptitiously through the United States, without paying the excise on it, constitutes a crime under the statutes, as does the purveying of bootlegged army rations.”
“Smugglin’?” Mitchum said, as if the very utterance of the word was horror enough for any respectable citizen.
“Aye.”
Mitchum refilled Marc’s mug. “On the house,” he said.
Marc dropped a shilling on the counter. “That’ll cover the drinks and the ostling,” he said.
“I ain’t had truck with any smugglers,” Mitchum said. “But there’s plenty of ’em about for them that’s inclined to be unlawful. Most of them Yankee peddlers up from Buffalo or across the ice from Oswego are rum-runners, or worse.”
Marc sipped the rum, grateful for the warmth it imparted.
“Why, I seen a pair of ’em earlier today, headin’, they claimed, for the bright lights of Cobourg. And if they was tinkers, I’m the Pope’s bum-boy.”
“You tell that news to the sheriff of York,” Marc said, reaching over and grasping the bib of Mitchum’s apron. “I’m on serious business, and the governor’s warrant.”
Mitchum mustered an ingratiating grin. “No need to do that, now, is there, sir? Gentleman soldiers need their little bit of fun and relaxation, don’t they?”
Marc released his hold. “How far is it to the next hamlet?”
“That’d be Perry’s Corners: eight miles, give or take a furlong. You can make it before dark, if the weather holds.” Mitchum dropped his grin. “’Course, there ain’t an inn with a decent bed between here and Port Hope.”
Marc pulled his greatcoat back on. “Tell your wife’s boy to bring my horse around to the road.”
“I’ll do that, sir. And I’ll remember you to your mates this evenin’, shall I?”
The weather didn’t hold. Marc hadn’t gone half a mile when the prevailing northwesterly abruptly died, replaced seconds later by a southeasterly pouring in from the cold expanse of Lake Ontario. Huge nimbus clouds gathered in the wake of the wind. Marc took off his stiff-brimmed shako with its green officer’s tuft, pushed it into his saddle-roll next to his French pistol, and pulled on-with more urgency than ceremony-the beaver cap so prized by Canadian voyageurs and woodsmen. He wound his scarf several times around his throat and collar and leaned forward as far as he could over the horse’s withers.
He had not long to wait. The wind-driven snow struck horse and rider like a loose flail. The road vanished, and the treeline, no more than twenty feet away on either side, fluttered and swam. Marc felt the horse’s panic and heard with alarm the stunted wheeze of its breathing. In a minute it would rear and bolt-somewhere. Marc leapt off into the packed snow of the road without releasing his grip on the reins. The startled horse shied and then spat the bit. But Marc, whose own fear was rising, wrenched the frenzied animal sideways, then hauled it, step by stubborn step, into the sheltering pines on the lake side of the Kingston Road. They halted under a tall jack pine, itself shielded by a hedge-like ring of cedars. Marc laid his cheek against the beast’s shoulder and stroked its neck. After a while they both stopped shivering.
When the wind dropped, they got back on the road. It was covered with a foot of fresh snow, and no track or rut was visible, either to the east or the west. The wind had eased off and only decorative little eddies of snow spun intermittently at the horse’s hooves. Less than half an hour of light remained. It would be pitch dark before he could reach even the unwelcoming hamlet of Perry’s Corners. Port Hope itself, and a hearty fire, was at least twenty miles farther on.
Suddenly, from a bend just ahead of him came the sound of horses pounding and snorting, accompanied by cries of human merriment. Marc drew to the side just in time to avoid collision with a four-horse team and a massive sleigh whistling along behind it. The driver waved a friendly mitt in Marc’s direction and clamped a smile around his pipe, but did not slow down. Weller’s thrice-weekly mail coach sailed past, leaving its fur-wrapped passengers only a moment to cheer his presence and admire his perseverance. One of them, apparently female, stood up, swung around, and held up a silver flask, as if offering a toast to the ensign. Such was social nicety among the self-professed gentry of the Upper Canadian bush.