Language for Jonathan was a lover more beautiful, more fascinating, more alluring, more charming, more beguiling than any woman he could imagine. He loved caressing vowels and molding consonants with his tongue, shaping ideas and phrases so they ebbed and flowed like a river; he was fascinated by the structure of languages, the way this or that language was interwoven with another, the similarities of the various languages and their diversity as well sense.

Yes, he thought wistfully, he should be in a classroom, illuminating some obscure point of Latin grammar or discussing a Greek tragedy. Instead, war had intervened, altering his plans forever. Like many patriotic young men from Connecticut, Jonathan had volunteered before the echoes of flying lead had died away at Lexington and Concord. He had defended Breed’s Hill and fought in the bitter retreat from Long Island. Now, several years later, here he was outside of New York City, war-weary and hardened, brown as an acorn from the sun, waiting endlessly for battles that never materialized as British generals performed intricate military minuets across New Jersey and New York and Pennsylvania with The Old Man, General Washington.

Corporal Blithe—red of face and thick of hands, head, and brains, but also steadfast and fearless under fire—opened the flap of the tent.

“Newman,” he growled, “Major Tallmadge wants to see you.”

“Did he say what for?” asked Jonathan.

Blithe shrugged his beefy shoulders. “They didn’t consult me,” he muttered dryly. “Who knows what they are planning upstairs. He has the Old Man’s ear, though, I can tell you that.”

Jonathan hastily finished cleaning his rifle. He tried to slap some of the dust from his oft-mended uniform, but the outfit was already as clean as circumstances would allow.

Benjamin Tallmadge—now Major Tallmadge—and Jonathan had been classmates at Yale. Jonathan remembered Tallmadge as an intense, outspoken defender of colonial rights, with a quick and clever mind in debate. Since Tallmadge had been at the beginning of his higher education as Jonathan was finishing his, they had known one another for only a year, and then only slightly. Consequently, Jonathan was puzzled that Benjamin—make that “Major”—Tallmadge would send for him. Still, orders were orders.

“Private Newman reporting, Sir,” said Jonathan, saluting smartly.

Tallmadge was young and slim with dark hair that fell over his brow and dark eyes, which were sharp and observant. In the camp, there were rumors that Tallmadge headed a clandestine service for General Washington, but no one could provide more specific details. One thing Jonathan did know: whenever a spy was brought into camp, Tallmadge was always the first sent for.

“Thank you for being so prompt, Private,” said the Major, returning the salute. Then stretching out a hand, he grinned and said, “Don’t you remember me, Jonathan?”

Remaining at attention, Jonathan said, “Of course I do, Sir. But that was a thousand years ago and in civilian life. In an army, discipline must be maintained.”

Tallmadge smiled grimly. “The enlisted men, I see, have much to teach the officers.” The Major paused a moment, then continued, “At ease.” Jonathan relaxed. “I have something I want to show you, Private Newman, but before I do, I must have your word not to discuss it with anyone.”

“You have it, Sir.”

Tallmadge brought forth from his jacket a piece of paper. From the deep creases in the paper, it was evident that it had been folded and re-folded many times.

“When I saw you on the parade ground the other day, my thoughts went back to Yale. By God, it seems a century ago—doesn’t it?—and not five years since we were students. I remembered that you were the most brilliant linguistic scholar Yale had for many years. Then yesterday, this was uncovered.”

He shoved the worn sheet across the table toward Jonathan, leaning over the paper himself.

The crumpled page showed ten lines of letters across in ten neat, widely-spaced rows. The letters, however, were in a jumble and made no sense:

Tallmadge said, “This coded message was taken from a peddler trying to get through our lines.”

Said Jonathan, “Did he give you any idea what the message contained?”

“He doesn’t seem to know, and he was frightened enough merely being captured that I think he would have told us if he knew. You develop a sense about fear in this filthy business.”

Jonathan nodded.

Tallmadge went on, “Nor could he tell us whom to whom the message was intended. That is often as helpful as knowing the message itself. But no, he is a courier and nothing more. His instructions—”

“Instructions from whom?” interrupted Jonathan.

“From a New York merchant who, for now, will remain nameless, if you don’t mind.”

Jonathan glimpsed the convoluted maze of espionage and counter-espionage and understood. “As you wish. Go on.”

“His instructions were to leave the note in a certain tree within a hundred yards of the Hudson River. He doesn’t have the faintest notion who was to retrieve it.”

“Are you having the tree watched?”

“By two of our best men. But I think to little avail.”

“Why does the Major say that?” Jonathan asked.

“It is a single oak on the side of a hill. It is virtually impossible to ride or walk up to the oak without being seen. Wouldn’t you think that, if you were hiding a note, you would do so in a place where it was easy to slip into and out of?”

“Perhaps, but the opposite argument might also be made. It is equally as easy to see if the tree is being watched, too. The closeness to the river might also be significant. Perhaps the recipient comes down the river by boat, observes if the oak is being watched. If not, he—or she—retrieves the message; if the tree is being watched, they merely pass on to return later.”

“Plausible,” said Tallmadge. “Still, I find it peculiar.”

“And I,” Jonathan agreed, studying the creased page.

“My cipher expert has been called home to a sick wife.”

“And this cannot wait.”

“From other sources I have in New York City,” Tallmadge said, “I have learned that a major stroke is being planned. What it is, I have been unable to discover. This cipher may be the key, but again, I don’t know. I thought I knew something about codes, but this one has me baffled.

“Remembering your legendary prowess with languages, I wondered if you would be willing to accept the challenge. It would be a chance for you to use your linguistic skills in the service of your country.”

Tallmadge held the worn sheet toward Jonathan. Taking the creased and rumpled page from him, Jonathan said firmly and without hesitation, “I accept the challenge.”

Jonathan was temporarily assigned to Tallmadge’s staff, which consisted of three men. One was the cipher expert who was currently with his wife. One was a lieutenant from New York, a James Rafferty, who had, it turned out, attended King’s College. His smile was broad and indiscriminate, and he clapped Jonathan on the back. “Brick and I were great friends,” he said.

“Brick?”

“Our usual decoder.”

“Mmm.”

“We won’t let the friendly rivalry of our schools stand in the way of a friendship, eh?” Rafferty said good-naturedly.

“Of course not,” said Jonathan, silently reflecting that, as of that moment, there was no friendship in which to stand in the way.

The other member of Tallmadge’s staff was a New Hampshire sergeant, Noah Flynt, who was like his namesake: as hard as New Hampshire rock. Like flint, sparks flew if you questioned The Cause, as the sergeant called it so lovingly and devotedly. His eyes were a pale granite-gray, and his brow was furrowed by a permanent glower to be erased only when he spoke of The Cause.

Later that afternoon, as Jonathan sat down to analyze the code, Lt. Rafferty swaggered into the tent, his hand casually on the hilt of his sword. His mouth was sensual, and there was an arrogance about him that was as palpable as the fragrance he wore. Lt. Rafferty, Jonathan could see, considered himself a man of the world.

“Have you discovered anything yet?” Rafferty asked.

Jonathan lifted an eyebrow as he covered the sheet with his arm. “Anything of what?”

“The letter, the code, the message,” he exclaimed.

Jonathan wondered how the Lieutenant would have knowledge of something so secret, for hadn’t the Major sworn Jonathan to secrecy? On the other hand, Jonathan knew that it was difficult, in an army that prided itself on its democratic character, for secrets to be kept. Sentries, standing guard before canvas entrances, were privy to many of the most strategic strokes of the war; couriers on horseback often possessed the highest state secrets in their saddlebags; and common tavern owners gossiped about the movement of troops as if they were ordering their morning ale. Distressing though it might be, Jonathan did not find it particularly surprising that one of Tallmadge’s staff was aware of the coded message.

He noticed how Rafferty’s eyes flitted toward the page under Jonathan’s arm. Mere curiosity or something more sinister? “No, I’ve not been able to decipher it,” said Jonathan, adding, “at least yet.”

“That’s the spirit; never give up; that is what will win us this war,” exclaimed Rafferty. “Let me know if I can be of any service.”

“I will,” said Jonathan, watching the Lieutenant depart. “I will.”

Jonathan let his eyes glide over the letters. He thought about the linguistic possibilities. Most likely it was in English. But Jonathan couldn’t rule out the possibility that it might be another language. For instance, the Hessian forces might send messages in German. Or Jonathan knew that the British General Clinton could read and write French. It was also possible that certain letters or numbers might simply represent a person or a place.

Night descended, and Jonathan still sat hunched over the paper, not one whit closer to its solution. Beside the page with the code, he had another sheet on which he wrote. The page was filled with blots and scratches. He looked at the columns down and across, backwards and from the bottom up; he looked at them diagonally. He tried to discover null letters—letters that were thrown into the mix simply to confuse but had no meaning in themselves. He eliminated different letters. He played with combinations of letters, writing them on a sheet of paper and angrily scratching them out when he ran up against a blank wall.

If there were nothing in English that made sense, then he would try another language. He allowed French and German words and phrases to flow into his mind, picturing combinations of consonants and vowels. But try as he might, he could not solve the puzzle.

With a weary sigh, Jonathan bent over the candle. For an instance, lost in thought, he stared into the yellow flame, then he blew out the candle and threw himself on a small cot. With the flame extinguished and his eyes open to the darkness, Jonathan saw flashes of light gradually fade away.

A long silence bloomed in the darkness, then abruptly, Jonathan sat up straight. He laughed out loud. He lay back on the cot, folding his hands behind his head, pondering the impenetrable darkness. A short time later he leaped out of bed and went in search of Major Tallmadge.

The next afternoon, Jonathan was in his tent with Major Tallmadge. He had asked the Major to summon his two staff members, Lieutenant Rafferty and Sergeant Flynt.

Fingering a corner of the rumpled page, Jonathan said, “My first problem was how to decode this strange box of letters—ten letters across by ten letters down. What made this especially interesting is that there is exactly the same number of letters—ten letters each used ten times. It was obvious that a simple substitution code wasn’t the answer, not for English—indeed, not for any language of which I am aware. No language uses every single letter the same number of times; certain letters and words are always used with much greater frequency than others.

“After endless frustration, it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn’t the letters at all that were the secret message. There was no code or cipher to be solved. The letters were simply a blind. But a blind for what? That was when the idea occurred to me that invisible ink had been used.”

Jonathan paused, looking at the three men. “Shall we see?” he asked. They each agreed.

“You brought the solution?” asked Jonathan of Major Tallmadge.

The Major nodded, handing over a small bottle. “Be careful with that,” he said. “Jay has promised us more, but for now it is in very short supply.”

Jonathan daubed some of the clear solution between the first and second line of numbers. And waited. Sergeant Flynt, Lt. Flattery, Major Tallmadge leaned over the table. The liquid absorbed into the paper. Nothing. Jonathan repeated the process between the second and third lines. Nothing. The third and forth lines. Still nothing.

“Nothing,” Tallmadge confirmed, hope dimming.

But then, between the fifth a sixth lines, some letters slowly began to materialize, faint and fuzzy but undeniable. Darker the letters grew, and darker, one after another.

The four men leaned closer.

FLEE, the message said, YOU HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED.

Rafferty instantly reached for his sword and pulled the blade out an inch, but Tallmadge was prepared, and he immediately pulled a pistol from beneath his coat. He levelled it at Rafferty’s chest. “No sudden moves, if you please, Lieutenant,” he said quietly.

Seeing that he was checkmated, Rafferty sullenly shoved his sword back into the scabbard. No smile lit his face now. “How did you—?”

“We didn’t know you were the spy,” said Jonathan, “but you did, and it was that knowledge that let us set the trap.”

“What do you mean?” asked a startled Flynt.

“I said that I soon realized that the meaningless letters were just a blind. But the most interesting question was not only the message disguised by the code, but for whom was the message intended.

“Why, I asked myself, would the British send a message as a code or cipher when they were using invisible ink? If they had wanted the message to get through our lines, wouldn’t it have been more easily done disguised as an ordinary letter, perhaps a request for some goods or a letter of credit? As a result, I came to the conclusion that the British wanted the message confiscated. More than that, they wanted the message brought to Major Tallmadge’s attention, for despite General Washington’s best intentions to keep it a secret, it is widely surmised the Major is deeply involved in clandestine activities. Why would the British want the message brought here unless it was here where one of their trusted agents was planted. Here was located an agent who could possibly bring the war to an end with one decisive stroke.

“Instructing the peddler to put the message in a tree was another blind. They knew the message would never get that far.

“My first thought was that perhaps Major Tallmadge himself might be the agent. But if such had been the case, I couldn’t see why the Major would bring the letter to me for deciphering. He would guess that the message contained invisible writing and could easily expose the message in private whenever he wished.

“With the exception of the missing staff member, that left only you, Lieutenant Rafferty, and you, Sergeant Flynt. How to unravel that problem became the next issue, for the message made it paramount that we discover the indentity of the spy.”

“The message?—but that is the message,” muttered Rafferty.

Jonathan smiled bleakly. “I’m afraid we misled you, Lieutenant. Last night, Major Tallmadge and I used the solution to uncover the secret message. Fortunately, the solution worked for your ink as it does for ours.”

“What was the message?” cried out Flynt, impatiently.

Jonathan replied, “‘Washington must die,’ it said.” He let the words sink in for a moment, then went on. “So you see, we had to locate this agent who was considered so skillful that he could be ordered to assassinate General Washington.

“This message”—Jonathan held up the page—“was a plant to flush out the turncoat.” Disgusted, Jonathan waved the traitor away.

“Guards,” called Major Tallmadge, and Lieutenant Rafferty was gripped by heavy hands.

“The British will crush you,” Rafferty snarled between tight lips.

“You, at any rate, will not be a witness to the event,” said Tallmadge. “Take him away,” he told the guards.

In the silence that followed, the three men pondered the future. Who would prove right? was the question each of them asked. Would treachery prove the ultimate victor or courage?

Finally, Tallmadge sighed. “You made a brilliant job of it, even if it turned out not to be linguistic,” he told Jonathan. “It appears I have an opening in my staff; I would be pleased if you would fill it, Lieutenant Newman.”

“Lieut—” exclaimed Jonathan. He came to attention and saluted smartly. “I would be honored, Sir.”

“Then let us shake hands, remembering that discipline must always be maintained . . .” Tallmadge said with an outstretched hand and the faintest flicker of amusement in his eye, “. . . in public.”