Turncoat Read Online Free PDF Page B

in time to say, “Splendid thought! We keep a modest dram of superior spirits to mix up a syllabub now and then.” He drew what appeared to be a regulation army canteen from under his jacket and poured each of them a toddy.
    â€œTo King William the Fourth!”
    They drank to the fount and guardian of the British Empire.
    â€œYour toast, good sir.”
    â€œTo honest men everywhere!” Marc said.
    The liquor slid silkily down Marc’s throat: overproof Jamaican rum.
    A S SOON AS HORSE AND DONKEY had been made as comfortable as possible, the three men set about arranging their bedrolls around the last glow of the fire. When Marc went back out to relieve himself, he slipped his sabre from its scabbard and tiptoed back inside. All was dark and quiet.
    For a long while, Marc lay awake, despite the demands of his body for sleep, waiting for the telltale snoring of the peddlers, who, graciously enough, had given him pride of place next to the fire. While checking his horse earlier, Marc had given the donkey and its packs a searching look and decided that these men carried no weapons of any size. Nor did he see anything that resembled contraband goods among the pots and pans of their tradesmen’s gear.
    Some time later he opened his eyes wide. How long he had slept he did not know, but he soon knew what had wakened him. Connors and O’Hurley were both upright, huddled against the door and fumbling for the latch.
    â€œJasus, it’s cold. We shoulda stayed in Buffalo.”
    â€œWell, I gotta take a piss and I’m not fouling my own nest.”
    â€œMe too, dammit.” O’Hurley was jerking at the latch in the dark.
    Then Connors whispered, “Sorry to wake you, Ensign. Ferris and I have got to answer a pre-emptive call of nature.”
    The door opened, colder air drifted in from outside, and the peddlers vanished. Seconds later the air hissed with their exertions, but they did not return. Marc reached over and felt for the saddlebags, his own and his hosts’. Both were still there. Once again he fought against sleep—thinking hard.
    O’HURLEY HAD HIS EAR AGAINST THE door. “I don’t hear no snorin’.”
    â€œLet me have a gander, before my balls freeze solid and drop off.” Connors eased the door open a crack. The unexpected onset of moonlight allowed him a partial but clear view of the ensign wrapped in his bedroll, his fur cap pulled down over his face against the biting cold of a midwinter night.
    â€œEdwards,” Connors said in a low, amiable voice. “You awake?” No reply. “We’re just gonna move the animals to the other side of the cabin.”
    â€œHe’s out for the night,” O’Hurley said nervously.
    â€œThe rum did the trick.”
    â€œWe gonna go through with this?”
    â€œOf course we are. We can’t take any chances.”
    â€œHe seemed like an okay fella to me.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t last a week on your own,” Connors said without rancour.
    The decision had been made after they had relieved themselves in the brush at the foot of the knoll, though not without several minutes of furiously whispered argument.
    â€œI bet that horse’s worth fifty bucks,” O’Hurley said, warming to the task at hand.
    â€œIt may be too risky to take,” Connors said.
    â€œIf only the bugger’d not asked so many questions.”
    â€œHere,” Connors said, and he held out a stout log frozen as hard as an iron bar. “Get on with it.”
    â€œWhy me?”
    â€œYour turn, old boy,” Connors said, smiling. “Besides, it was you that blabbed about the rum and my sister.”
    With the weapon shaking in his grasp, O’Hurley inched the door farther open, shuddering at every creak it made. But exhaustion seemed to have claimed the redcoat utterly. He would never see the blow that killed him. Perhaps there would even be no pain: he would simply not wake