Lazy Blogger

I guess you could call me a lazy blogger and if I’m honest I couldn’t argue with that. I don’t write this blog anywhere near often enough, despite knowing I should. I apologize for that, time just seems to get away from me and I do have excuses for my laziness, although you may think they’re pretty lame.

At the moment I’m busy writing “Cheating”, the fifth in the Dean and Steph detective series. It’s going well so far but as usual the characters have taken on a life of their own and have gone off in unexpected directions. The perpetrator has changed and that caused quite a long pause in the writing but I’m back on course now. The thing is I did promise to have it out in the fall and am a little behind schedule so I’m playing catch up.

On top of that I have my weekly column in the Putnam Herald to write and, with a two week vacation in England coming over the horizon; I am trying to get ahead with that. Between times I’ve been editing “The Prince’s Puzzle”, an English Civil War detective novel and looking for an appropriate picture for the cover, a task that is not as easy as you may think. Finally, I do a full time day job to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table for a growing family.

It’s a busy life but I still feel a little guilty that I don’t write this blog more often, I will try to improve my performance but don’t hold your breath; the story telling has to come first.

And speaking of story telling I think it’s about time I introduced you to some more of mine. Below are the first few pages of “The Lichfield Conspiracy” a political thriller about terrorists, politicians, a soldier and a girl. See what you think and, if it sparks your interest, you’ll find it on Kindle for 99cents at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=a9_sc_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aderek+coleman&keywords=derek+coleman&ie=UTF8&qid=1440630462

CHAPTER ONE - LONDONDERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND

The gusting wind rattled pellets of rain against the car and Ben Shaughnessy used the back of his gloved hand to wipe the condensation from the inside of the passenger window.

  He looked across the Catholic cemetery to where the mourners stood, huddled with a rain-coated priest around the open grave. ‘It’s a fine day for a funeral,’ he thought to himself. Politeness dictated he should be out there with them, but he’d not known old Richard Sullivan well. In fact, he’d not seen the man for many years and, since coming out of the Maze prison, he found it difficult to keep warm outside, so he stayed in the car.

  It didn’t matter though. He’d made the gesture; they saw him in the church. They now knew he was back. That, and the fact he remained in the car, would make the superstitious peasants remember how things once were and then they would begin to fear again. He wanted them to fear, they should fear. They should fear because they were going to pay for his lost youth.

  Fourteen years was a long time to have been away, a fifth of a lifetime. Times had changed, people had come and gone and there was a new order of things. They didn’t need him and his kind now but that didn’t matter; after losing fourteen years he no longer cared about the Cause, now it was personal.

  The car shook and Shaughnessy shivered as Mickey Collins opened the driver's door and got in, bringing an icy blast of air with him.

  'I took the flowers Ben,' he said. 'Sean remembers you and said to say hello. He'd come over himself but with it being his da's funeral and all it wouldn't look right.'

  Shaughnessy looked over at the mourners again. Sean Sullivan was easy to pick out; he was always a big lad and now he was running to fat. How old was he? Thirty-four, thirty-five? He looked as if he were in his fifties standing there with his brother Patrick beside the grieving widow.

  The flowers were a nice touch, a gesture no one could challenge. His name on the attached tag would have the desired effect however. ‘I bet he said to say hello,’ Shaughnessy thought with a cynical smile. Sean had always been scared of him and the bastard was probably shitting himself at the thought that he was out again.

  Patrick was different. He’d not been wild but he’d run with the lads occasionally. There were tales about him Ben could tell that would make his old dad spin in the grave they were now putting him into.

  Without taking his eyes from the shivering crowd at the graveside, he spoke,

  'Don't bullshit me, Mickey.' His voice was quiet and pleasant but Mickey Collins lost his eager grin instantly and his face paled a little. He’d known Ben in the old days. He walked in his shadow and knew enough to be scared.

  'Don't bullshit me,' Ben repeated. 'Sean Sullivan never said that at all. Patrick might have said it but not Sean.'

  Mickey blanched further and swallowed the lump that seemed to have appeared in his throat. It was as if the past fourteen years had never happened, as if Shaughnessy had never been away. He’d heard that amused tone before, had seen the tiny smile which never reached as far as the hazel eyes too many times in the past. Fear flooded his mind; he remembered that smile only too well. The screaming of a Protestant soul in torment always followed it.

  Not that religion mattered to Shaughnessy; he’d inflicted pain on Catholics as well. He enjoyed it too much to care and that was why the Cause abandoned him. They’d had enough of him before he went to prison and had not accepted him again since his release. Ben Shaughnessy was too dangerous. He enjoyed the killing too much, he wanted too much of it and that was not the name of the game any more. Mickey swallowed again.

  'I'm sorry Ben,' he whimpered in terror. 'I thought Sean would want to say hello for old times sa.. .'

  'Sean Sullivan and I have no old times,' Shaughnessy interrupted as he rubbed away the condensation again and stared with interest across at the group of mourners.

  He’d not noticed the girl before. She was standing half-concealed behind Sean and only moved to the front as the fat bastard started to lead his mother away.

  She stopped by the graveside, staring down as the wind gusted and whipped her rain darkened, auburn hair across her face. She lifted a hand to pull the tresses back over her shoulder and his breath stuck in his throat as he caught a first look at her features in profile.

  After fourteen years inside the first thing he told Mickey to get him was a woman. She was a tart from the rough end of Derry but it didn’t matter. He used her and felt nothing, just the easing of an ache. This girl was different; she was young, tall and slim. A stranger would have called her attractive, but he was not a stranger. He knew her face. Even after fourteen years, he knew it, despite the fact she’d only been a small child when he went away. It was the face of a dead man and he felt a burning throb of excitement start in his loins as he looked at her.

  'Her. There, the one with the long red hair.' His voice was a hoarse whisper but Mickey was glad of the diversion from his own misguided attempt to please Shaughnessy. Quickly he followed the direction of the other man's gaze.

  There were several women at the graveside, two or three of them with red hair but he knew the one Shaughnessy meant. She was turning away now, but she still stood out from the crowd and he already knew who she was, even though she’d only arrived yesterday. He misunderstood Shaughnessy's interest however.

  'Fancy that one, do you?' he smiled. 'Well you'll have to be bloody quick, she's only here for the funeral and then she's off home again tomorrow.' He paused as memory flooded back. Christ. Surely Ben knew her? She was a feminine image of her brother at the same age and if anyone had known Vince Gregson, Shaughnessy had. He must have seen her a thousand times before Vinny was killed but prison does strange things to a man. She’d only been a child when Ben went away and maybe he’d forgotten.

  ‘You already know her, or you did. She's Rose Gregson's little girl, Margaret. You know, Vinny's little sister.' He could not resist the temptation to look at Shaughnessy's face as he told him. He was hoping to see surprise, shock or some similar emotion there but apart from a slight narrowing of those cold hazel eyes there was nothing.

  Shaughnessy didn’t even reply as he continued to stare without blinking at the girl. He’d known who she was. She looked like Vinny, softer, more feminine but there was a definite likeness. The last time he’d seen her, she was about eight years old. She’d stood in the corner of her mother's kitchen, screaming herself into hysterics as he’d dumped Vinny's body on the table to lie wide-eyed and sightless, dripping blood and brains onto the floor.

  The memory stirred him and he felt a sexual urge that was almost too strong to deny.

  'What's she doing here?' he grated.

  'Her ma's the widow's sister. It's her uncle Richard they're burying.'

  Shaughnessy nodded slowly, memory returning and his eyes narrowing in thought as a pulse beat visibly in his pale temple.

  'Okay, Mickey,' he said as the girl walked away from the grave and followed the rest of the family. 'Start her up. We're going to help console the grieving widow.'

Adventure and romance despite distractions

I have a friend, also a writer, who has the ability to switch off all outside stimuli and can concentrate on what she is writing no matter what is happening around her.

I’ve seen her writing great prose with ear buds in her ears and music playing. She listens to Evanescence and similar bands, it’s not heavy stuff, but it’s still a distraction. I can’t do that, I wish I could. Any noise around me when I’m working seems to interrupt my thought processes.

At the moment the house is virtually silent, I’m alone in the office but even as I write this I’m very conscious of the sound of the dishwasher two rooms away. It’s a muted sound, just water running and the faint hum of machinery but I’m very aware of it and it’s hard to concentrate.  I guess we are all different and that’s just the way I’m made, with a low distraction threshold but despite that I do manage to produce the occasional piece of work and this week I’ve published “Liberty” an adventure/romance set against the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

It’s available from Amazon, all good book stores, on Kindle or you can get a signed copy direct from me at a reduced price. Below you’ll find the first few paragraphs and, if you’d like to read more, just let me know.

Liberty

CHAPTER ONE - THE GATHERING STORM

The rain finally stopped. It had fallen in torrents for the past week but now the Massachusetts sky was clearing rapidly to a bright blue. Elizabeth, sick of being cooped up in the house, took the opportunity to go out. The air was chilly but it smelled fresh and clean as she turned away from the village green to walk through the pasture beside the tavern. She had a lot on her mind. She needed to be away from people to think clearly and she felt resentment when the stranger came into view for the first time.

He was riding a big bay horse and appeared where the road from Concord emerged from the trees. The thick, black cloak he wore was wrapped close around him against the early April wind and his face was not visible. A floppy-brimmed hat was pulled well down over his eyes, but from the way he slumped in the saddle, he was weary and appeared to have ridden far that day.

Normally strangers would excite little interest in the village of Lexington. It was situated on the Boston post road and travelers were frequent. These were trying times, though. Everyone was on the lookout for strangers as John Hancock and Sam Adams, the leaders of the patriots, were hiding nearby.

Unrest had been simmering in the colonies for years. It had begun with the protests against taxation and was fuelled by the shooting of civilians in the so-called Boston massacre and events like the famous tea party of two years before.

Things had become worse lately. The militia drilled openly on the village greens while arms and military supplies were collected and hidden. Hancock and Adams were the leading lights of the colony’s Committee of Safety, which controlled the militia and took up the colonist’s cause against the government. As such, General Gage, the military governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wanted to arrest them in order to transport them to England to face charges of conspiracy and treason.

The suspicion of strangers was well warranted. Only two weeks before, three British soldiers rode through the back roads to the village of Concord to look for military stores. No one was going to let that episode be repeated. What equipment the colonists had managed to assemble was costly and they could not afford to let the army seize it, so everyone from the toughest farmer to the smallest child was warned to be on the alert and to report seeing anyone they did not know.

 The man coming up the road looked too tired to be a spy however. His slumped posture told of his fatigue as he reined in his mud-spattered mount and regarded Elizabeth over the fence. His eyes were a penetrating pale blue and, to her surprise, she realized his face was that of a young man, probably somewhere in his mid twenties. At first sight she had thought him older and now as she looked at him she saw those blue eyes were twinkling with amusement as they held her in their stare. Suddenly for no apparent reason she felt a flush rising to her cheeks.

Momentarily confused she dropped her gaze, knowing in an instant he had noticed her discomfiture because there was a dry chuckle in his voice as he spoke.

Nervous?.....

I’ve been writing for a long time, more years than I care to think about in fact. My first ‘novel’ was written manually on two A4 pads of notepaper, it was probably less than 40,000 words and I wore out the nib of a fountain pen writing it. It has long ago been consigned to the great trash bin in the sky and the story has never been re-written.

After that I acquired an old manual typewriter and used it to write my stories. I was never a great typist. I’m still not, although, when the creative juices are flowing, I can manage a fairly respectable speed just using a couple of fingers and I don’t make too many errors. Then along came the computer era, of course, and my output increased ten fold.

That was about the time I started to think about writing seriously. I entered competitions and finally joined a very small writing group at my local library. Up to that time my stories had been just for me and, if I was feeling brave, any competition judges I cared to trust with my work. The writing group changed that and introduced me to reading what I’d written aloud in front of an audience.

As I said, that first group was very small, no more than half a dozen of us and I think that helped me to overcome the nerves of reading to an audience. I’ve been a member of much larger creative writing groups since then and I’ve gotten used to reading my work to fellow writers who would offer helpful hints and constructive criticism. I don’t mind that, they know the torture of trying to produce a polished piece. One thing I have never done though, is read something I’ve written to you, the reading public.

Somehow the opportunity has never arisen but that is going to change next Saturday, June 27^th. On that day I shall be at the Tamarack, here in West Virginia. They are holding an event called the West Virginia Writer’s Weekend. I will have a table and will be selling my books but I am also going to do a reading. At 12:30 I shall be on stage with fifteen minutes to try to enthrall an audience with one of my short stories. At the moment I am not too nervous about it but I have a feeling that will change so, if any of you good people are near the Tamarack on Saturday the 27^th, I could certainly use your support. 

News and views

When asked how she came to write Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling said ‘The idea just came into my head…’ I guess that is the same for many of us who follow this lonely trade. Ideas just pop into our heads and we have to let them out by writing them down.

The idea for Harry Potter came to Rowling on a train, she did not have a pen and so she developed the story in her mind for the next four hours before ever putting anything down on paper. I work in a similar way. Ideas just seem to pop into my mind from nowhere and, if I like them, I turn them over and over letting them ferment, sometimes for days or even weeks, before either discarding them or  starting to write them.

Not all ideas born in this way work out. For every novel I have out there I have another that is either unfinished or which, when I got to the end, I was not happy with. I don’t throw these away, I put them on a back burner to keep warm and sometimes I go back to them, do a complete rewrite and then maybe produce something I think is worthwhile.

Of course simply writing books is not the only hard part of the craft these days, the author also needs to market his wares and that takes a lot of time and effort, time that would be better spent on the next book. I’ve advertised on social media and various groups, I’ve offered books for free, I’ve touted them wherever I can but I can only reach so many people and to attract a wider audience I, like most of my peers, need you, the readers, to not only spread the word but hopefully to leave reviews on sites such as Amazon.

Recently I gave my novel “Guilty?” away for free. More than three hundred people downloaded it, a significant number of them then downloaded further books but the vast majority did not leave a review so come on guys, if you liked it please put pen to paper and tell the world, if you didn’t then put pen to paper and tell me, I relish feedback.

I have two pieces of news before I close this. On Saturday, June 27, I will be selling signed copies of my books at the Tamarack here in West Virginia. I will also be doing a short reading of some of my work around lunch time so if you’re around the area please look in and say hello.

The second piece of news is that the four books in the Dean and Steph detective series are now available on Amazon as a boxed set for only $2.99 so, if you liked the first one take a look at the rest at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dean-Steph-boxed-set-Beneficiary-ebook/dp/B00Z4N2EJS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1433808399&sr=8-3&keywords=derek+coleman

Free book!

Well, the great “Guilty?” give away is into its third day. I don’t have any figures yet but from what I’ve heard and what I’ve read it seems to be going well.

You may wonder why anyone with pretensions to be a successful writer would want to give their work away for free. I can’t talk for anyone else but my reasons are twofold. First I hope that by giving the reading public a taster of my writing I will spark enough interest in some of them to get them to buy other books in the series and maybe, some of my other books too.  I’m never going to get rich this way, the electronic versions of the books are priced far too cheaply for that, but it would be nice to reach a wider audience.

The second reason for giving books away is hopefully to generate reviews for my work. Personally when I download an e-book I go for subject matter, price and then I look at the reviews. Reader’s opinions can make or break a book but getting them is very difficult. I always try to leave a review for the books I read, after all the writer spent months creating the book and, knowing how important the review process can be, I try to spend a couple of minutes saying what I thought of his or her work.

Of course, reviews can be a two edged sword. A bad review can kill a book; at least it does for me. Unfortunately writers have no come back or right of reply to comments readers leave and some readers seem to never have anything positive to say about any book. On the other hand a series of reviews does help the writer to know what the readers like, what they want and what went wrong. Editing indie books is not a quick or easy process but it can be done and if enough people want changes I’m happy to undertake them.

That being said it’s time for me to get writing. If you have an e-reader, i-pad, kindle etc and you haven’t downloaded your free copy of “Guilty?” yet you have until tomorrow night to do so. If you have got it, and you have read it, I hope you enjoyed meeting Dean and Steph and that you now want to follow more of their cases. Finally, if you have a couple of minutes to spare and feel so inclined I would appreciate a review but that is not as important as you enjoying the book.

Updates and apologies

I’m afraid I’ve neglected this blog over the past two or three months. I apologize for that, it wasn’t through lack of desire or lack of ideas, more lack of time. I took my US citizenship test a few weeks ago and tax season here in the USA is a very trying time with my wife working long hours six days a week and me working Saturdays in addition to my normal job. Thankfully that is over now so perhaps I can get back to some serious writing.

One thing I did manage to get time for was to give "The Lichfield Conspiracy" a complete re-write and the new edition is available in paperback and e-book on Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/Lichfield-Conspiracy-Derek-Coleman-ebook/dp/B00U5182KE/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1429445209&sr=1-6&keywords=derek+coleman

Meanwhile my weekly column in the Putnam Herald is now approaching it’s sixth anniversary and “Cheating”, the fifth in the Dean and Steph detective series is progressing slowly but surely as is the revision of “The Prince’s Puzzle”, which I hope to have available by the summer.

One of my main problems with publishing my own books is the cover picture. Sure, I can use free, public domain pictures but suitable ones are very hard to find. So far I’ve been lucky, Guilty?, Weoley and Traitor all have my own photographs on the front cover but now I’m stuck trying to find something suitable for the cover of a seventeenth century English Civil War detective novel. I could pay for a picture but my aim is to get my work out there to as many people as possible, as cheaply as possible so I’ll keep trying.

And that brings me neatly to my last comment. In an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible, “Guilty?”, the first book in the Dean and Steph series, will be available free for e-readers on Amazon from Friday, April 24 until Monday, April 27. If you would like a copy the link is below;

http://www.amazon.com/Guilty-Dean-Steph-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00M039CFO/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1429445209&sr=1-3&keywords=derek+coleman

As usual, feedback and reviews are welcome. Happy reading until next time

A story for Christmas

I know it’s been two or three weeks since I posted anything here but I do have a good excuse. I have promised two or three new books for the New Year and I intend to honor that but I thought I’d surprise you and get one done for Christmas. It’s been a long task but it’s now done and ‘Hessians’, a tale of adventure in the Revolutionary War was published on Amazon, Kindle and in major bookstores today.

It’s available at: http://www.amazon.com/Hessians-Derek-Coleman/dp/1505550696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418867432&sr=8-1&keywords=derek+coleman&pebp=1418867447338

 but, rather than me waffling on about it, here is the prologue, I hope you enjoy it and want to read more. A very Merry Christmas to you all.

PROLOGUE

The silence was the strange thing. A line of a thousand men would normally be humming with talk but it seemed not one of them had the energy to speak as the ragged column straggled along the muddy road. They were dirty, wet, tired beyond reason, out of step and dispirited. Their heads were bowed against the wind-driven rain, their weary footsteps were slow and their clothes provided little protection against the harsh winter weather.

Some still wore semblances of what had once been uniforms, weather-faded blue serge coats with facings of red or buff. Most were dressed in homespun or linen that had long-since been worn into tatters. Some still had boots; others the remnants of shoes, one or two wrapped their feet in stained and bloody rags. For the main part they were bareheaded in the wet, the hat is the first thing to go when a soldier breaks and runs.

They came in ones and twos, in single file or small bunches. There was little sign of cohesive units. No companies or platoons. No one looked as if he were leading them. Each man just numbly followed in the footsteps of the one in front of him. Their weapons, a mixture of muskets, rifles, sporting guns or just poles with knives lashed to them, were carried a thousand different ways; anything to ease the burden on war-weary muscles.

Here and there a man led a gaunt horse but the animals were as tired as their masters and their heads drooped in exhaustion. These were the cavalry, the once proud eyes of the army, now reduced to the beaten weariness of their infantry brethren. Then came a lone gun. A six-pounder brass field piece, its muzzle still blackened with the burnt powder residue of overuse.

The gunners, as dirty and tired as the rest, led, cajoled and cursed the three underfed mules pulling the piece. Every few yards the weight of the barrel drove the wheels of the weapon deep into the glutinous mud already churned by a thousand feet. When it did so the mules shuddered to a halt, their heads down and their eyes dull. There was only one way to move on. The gunners got down into the mud and pushed at wheel spokes until slowly the animals and their load eased forward again. The men looked as bone-weary as the mules but they stubbornly stuck to their task and the column snaked on.

Lieutenant James Holte, sheltering as best he could under the winter-bared boughs of a spreading maple tree, watched the defeated army go past, his eyes narrowed and his face grim. He sensed rather than saw someone move up alongside him but did not immediately turn to see who it was.

‘A rabble, aren’t they?’ a voice said after a moment. Holte nodded slowly and glanced at the newcomer. Unlike the men passing before the two of them Captain Simon Howard still wore the blue and buff of Washington’s headquarters’ staff and the horse he held by its reins was sleeker, more alert and better fed than the others.

‘They’ve come a long way since Long Island,’ Holte said carefully. ‘They’ve seen a lot of fighting and have been beaten once too often.’

‘Can they take another beating?’

Holte looked back at the road. One of the men who were passing slipped, dropped his broken musket and fell to his knees in the mud. He was hardly more than a boy yet his sunken-cheeked face bore the experience of a lifetime. For a moment he just knelt there, mouth open and eyes closed, then two other soldiers stopped. They each took an arm and hauled the boy to his feet before slipping his arms around their shoulders. Together they half-dragged him on, leaving the broken musket lying in the mud.

Holte shook his head.

‘No,’ he said, ‘not now.’ He paused and looked at Howard again. ‘Are they going to get beaten again?’ he asked. ‘Because if they are you aren’t going to have any army left.’

Howard grimaced.

‘Who knows? If Lord Howe has any sense at all, he will have his light troops snapping at our heels and his main column just behind. Fortunately for us though, no one has ever accused his Lordship of having much sense. He could have taken us at Long Island and again at New York or he could have caught us as we crossed the rivers on the way down here, but he didn’t.’ He shook his head, ‘No, my guess is that he’ll go into winter quarters and will leave the weather and starvation to finish us off.’

‘They will,’ Holte said, ‘unless we can rest and get supplies soon.’

‘We’ll rest tonight,’ Howard replied, ‘but supplies are going to be harder to get. We abandoned a lot of valuable stuff up north.’ He hesitated and then added, ‘That’s where you and your scoundrels come in. I have a job for you. How many do you have left?’

Holte forgot the passing column and turned to face Howard. War and attrition had shrunk his company just as it had the rest of the army. Like the others they needed rest and a good feed but they were in better shape than most. At least they were still a unit.

‘I’ve got twenty-eight,’ he said.

‘Where?’ Howard demanded, looking around. Holte whistled shrilly and his men appeared, seeming to rise out of the ground and stepping from behind trees and bushes. They were tough men, some very young, some older. Several were bearded, the rest clean-shaven and, like Holte himself, each wore a leather hunting shirt dyed green, gray or brown. Every man carried a Pennsylvania rifle, the locks carefully wrapped against the mud and damp.

‘Very well,’ Howard said. He nodded, ‘Twenty-eight will have to do.’

Holte rested the butt plate of his own rifle on the fallen leaves at his feet and crossed his arms over the muzzle.

‘Do for what?’ he demanded.

‘To get supplies for the army.’

‘We’re not quartermasters.’

‘No, you’re fighting soldiers and that’s what this job needs. These supplies are back in New Jersey.’

Holte grimaced,

‘And the enemy is holding New Jersey,’ he said. Howard nodded, his eyes carefully weighing the other man’s reaction.

‘Just how much stuff do you think twenty-eight men can sneak out from behind British lines?’ Holte said. ‘We’ll only be able to carry enough to feed ourselves.’

‘There are wagons,’ Howard said. ‘A dozen wagons and the teams to pull them.

Holte frowned. What Howard was saying was ridiculous. Twenty- eight men could not take a dozen wagons back across the Delaware, load them with supplies and hope to get them out again. It was not possible.

‘There are ten-thousand redcoats over there,’ he said. ‘They might object.’

‘Hopefully they won’t know,’ Howard told him. ‘I’m told these supplies are hidden in the backwoods where the enemy is unlikely to look for them or to even have a garrison.’

‘Where?’

‘A place called Wixford. It’s on a tributary of the Delaware called the Arrow River, about twenty miles from Trenton.’

Holte did some rapid thinking. If his men rested and ate a hot meal or two they could cover twenty miles in a night march. Wagons could not though; they would be lucky to make ten miles a day in this weather. If they took back roads that were nothing more than muddy tracks they might manage five miles a day at best. They also had to cross the Delaware under the noses of enemy patrols. It could not be done.

He told Howard so.

‘You don’t have to take the wagons. They’re already with the supplies,’ Howard told him. ‘All you have to do is to get there and get them out.’

‘A day to get there, five days at least to get back, and only twenty-eight men to watch over a dozen wagons? I still think it can’t be done.’

Howard laughed.

‘You have the mind of a soldier, Mr. Holte,’ he said. ‘War isn’t like that. It’s about politics.’

‘Politics?’

‘Yes, politics. These are New Jersey stores. They were collected in New Jersey, by the people of New Jersey for the sole use of New Jersey militia. They wouldn’t let you have them even if you went for them. No, they have to be collected by New Jersey troops and I have a battalion of fresh militia from that colony ready to go.’

‘So why do you need us?’

‘I need you because, as I said, these are fresh troops. They’ve never seen a musket fired in anger. They’re green as the grass in summer and their colonel is greener.’

‘Colonel?’

‘Colonel Marcus Van Derijk of the New York Van Derijk’s.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘His family owns a lot of land on Manhattan Island but his place is in New Jersey. Seems he owns about half the colony. He raised the militia himself and paid for their equipment.’

‘He’s a soldier?’

‘He served as an ensign under Braddock back in ’fifty-seven but never saw any fighting.’

‘So he knows nothing about soldiering?’

Howard smiled ruefully and said,

‘Don’t tell him that. He has the British army book of infantry maneuvers and thinks he knows it all.’

‘And I’m supposed to hold his hand whilst he retrieves his stores?’

‘You’re supposed to pretend to be under his command and to keep him out of trouble. We can’t afford to lose a hundred militia as well as the stores.’