Jack has ridden up a long, winding slope, cresting it within sight of the walled city of Calais. The sun is bright and the sea sparkles beyond the walls. There are ships in the distance too, and he does not need to see their colors to know they are British.
Back in the priest hole, Frost had entrusted Jack with a mission: “Ride to Calais. Ride like the wind. Find Blücher. Stop him. At all costs he must not engage the French Army. Can you do this?”
“I can try, sir,” Jack said. He hesitated. “But why would he listen to me, sir?”
Arbuckle pulled a sheet of paper from inside his tunic and wrote rapidly on it with a quill pen. He folded it and handed it to Jack.
“Give this letter to Blücher,” he said. “Whoever you speak to, say this: ‘Dringende Nachricht für Blücher.’ Repeat it back to me.”
Jack tried his best, struggling with the unfamiliar sounds.
“Good enough,” Arbuckle said. “It means ‘Urgent message for Blücher.’ Practice it on the way.”
“You must stop Blücher at all costs,” Frost said. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said.
Arbuckle pulled a pistol from his holster. He took a pepper cartridge from his ammunition pouch and quickly loaded the pistol before handing it to Jack.
“Go, man,” Arbuckle said. “Every second counts.”
Now, after hours of hard travel, Jack has arrived. On the farmlands stretched out below him he sees the Prussian Army, neat rows of soldiers, cannon, and horses.
His own horse is almost spent, spittle coating the sides of his face, his labored breathing only easing when Jack lets him rest for a moment at the top of the hill.
“Good boy,” he says affectionately, patting Marengo’s neck. The horse shakes his mane and gives a soft whinny.
The army below him looks as if it has just got here; the soldiers are still setting up camp. Rows of tents at the rear are being erected. There are no signs of battle, no smoke, no sounds of gunfire. He thinks he might just deliver his message in time, and rehearses in his head the phrase that Arbuckle taught him.
Marengo is breathing a little easier and they are starting down the other side of the hill when Jack sees a streak of fire from within the walls of the city. A rocket sending up a flare on a parachute that drifts slowly to earth, a yellow star hanging above the city like in the stories from the Bible.
He digs his heels into the horse’s sides and this magnificent stallion flies down the hill, mane streaming behind him.
From the base of the hill Jack rides through a small glade where leafy trees form a roof over the road, an oasis of peace that belies what is ahead.
Then it is farmland and Jack encounters the first of the Prussian soldiers, two light cavalrymen patrolling the rear.
“Dringende Nachricht für Blücher,” Jack cries as soon as he is within earshot, before they have a chance to challenge him.
One of them starts to talk, a long string of incomprehensible sounds. Jack just keeps repeating: “Dringende Nachricht für Blücher.”
He remembers the envelope and pulls it from his tunic, waving it at the men. “Dringende Nachricht für Blücher!”
They look at each other, then one of them nods and points down the road. Jack is gone before the arm is half-raised, spurring the horse forward. There are more soldiers here, the rear echelons of the army. The cooks, the engineers, the caravans of the merchants who trail behind the army.
To everyone he meets he repeats the phrase he has memorized.
The words as he says them start to get mixed up in his mind and he says them in the wrong order or misses words until he is so confused that he can only hold up the envelope and say, “Dringende. Blücher.”
It is enough. Everyone nods and points him in a direction until he arrives at a tent, well guarded.
“Blücher,” Jack says. “Dringende!”
A guard takes the letter from his outstretched hand and disappears inside. A moment later a man in the uniform of a field marshal emerges. He speaks at first in German, then switches to English when Jack shakes his head.
“Who are you?” Blücher asks.
“Sir, I’m Private Jack Sullivan, Royal Horse Artillery, G troop. I mean I used to be, before I went to work for Lieutenant Frost, sir.” Jack stops, flustered.
“Is this information true?” Blücher thunders, waving the letter.
“You must not attack!” Jack cries. “The devil has battlesaurs!”
A peal of thunder comes from the front line and smoke and the smell of gunpowder are brought swiftly to them on the freshening breeze.
“Your message arrives too late,” Blücher says.