“Positions!” Muttlebury cried, his voice suddenly falsetto with fear.
Billy, in the first rank with his Brown Bess already primed and loaded, waited for the order to fire. The man behind him swore and dropped against him.
“Fire!” Muttlebury squeaked.
Up and down the front rank of the five companies the initial volley rang, splitting the air with its calamitous impact. Billy’s rank dropped to one knee and, seconds later, the second rank let loose, dropped to one knee, and shuddered as the third rank followed suit. Billy’s ears had stopped hearing anything, and he could see nothing but the thick roil of exploded gunpowder. When it was lifted gently upward by the morning breeze, he was able to appraise the effect of this classic military gambit. Enemy bodies lay prone upon the ground or draped in ghastly silhouette against the apple trees, while others writhed and spun madly in the snow, flailing their arms as if beating off enraged bees. Their whooping bravado had been displaced by moans and curses.
One of their officers, however, had already begun rallying his remaining troops, and the air once again shook with a ragged but deadly counterfire. It took twenty seconds for crack British troops to reload, but these fresh militia recruits were months away from that level of proficiency. It was during such an interval that real danger lay. Reloading infantrymen in close rank were certain prey for the American marksmen. Half a dozen toppled before Billy’s rank was able to repeat its initial volley. Seasoned British regulars would just keep up the sequence of volleys until they died where they stood, but there was a good chance that these raw volunteers would simply break and run.
Billy could not stay long enough to find out, for he was already following Captain Muttlebury on the flanking manoeuvre ordered by the colonel and frantically calling on A-Troop to do the same. Mel, he was pleased to see, brought up the rear, and was hollering words of encouragement to the fellows they had worked beside for almost a month, whom they knew by name, and whose lives they valued as much as their own. Colonel Stanhope had trained the trainers well.
The going through the scrub brush to the east of Baby’s fields was much less comfortable than travelling the road had been. The slush among the evergreens and rotting stumps had frozen overnight, and the men hobbled over it as if over a rocky beach, with the added risk of pratfalling on a hidden ice patch. To their left they could hear the singular blast of their comrades’ volleys interspersed with the motley, sputtering snap of Yankee sharpshooters. Just ahead of Billy, Muttlebury was huffing like a spent draft horse as his big-bellied figure slipped and skidded.
Five minutes later they again emerged into the clearing, but this time they were fully east of the orchard. The firing between the opposing forces had not ceased, the air was blue and acrid with smoke, and there were more bodies on the ground, on both sides. All Billy could see for certain was that the panic and confusion seemed to be limited to the Patriots, not because of the helter-skelter dashing about of individuals-that was the trademark of these freebooters-but because of the desperate cries and peremptory discipline of their officers. He saw one of them grab a fellow about to turn tail and fling him back into line with one powerful thrust of his right arm. The left was dangling helplessly at his side. The regular, timed fusillade from the companies across the clearing was indication enough that the incomparable colonel had succeeded in molding his apprentice soldiers into an effective fighting unit.
Captain Muttlebury now ordered his men to form a single rank at the edge of the bush. They had not yet been seen. Less than a minute later, they loosed a killing volley of enfilading fire upon the surprised and hapless occupants of the orchard. The effect was immediate. All those capable of doing so broke and scampered towards several outbuildings to the north of them. Many had no legs to flee with.
“After them!” boomed the stentorian voice of Colonel Stanhope, and the four companies at his side charged across the clearing with bayonets fixed and a local variant of the redcoat’s ululation.
Muttlebury was about to follow suit, particularly because his unit was already closer to the routed men than the colonel’s, but the order never came. Billy was tugging at his left sleeve and pointing towards the northeast corner of the orchard, where it was almost contiguous with the spruce and cedar woods they themselves were sheltering in.
“Who’s that?” Muttlebury wondered, spotting a Yankee through a screen of boughs waving an arm and hissing out some kind of command.
“I think it’s one of their generals, sir,” Billy said. “I been watchin’ him. He seems to have been hit in the left arm.”
“Why don’t he skedaddle with the others?”
“I think he’s organizin’ a retreat through the bush somewhere.”
“Then we better get after him. If he’s the CO, he may be carrying papers we’ll want to have a gander at before he burns ’em.”
“Yessir. Shall I send Corporal Cox to inform the colonel of our intention?”
“Yes, yes, we oughta do that.”
Cox was clearly unhappy about being left out of the chase but was soon on his way over to the advancing body of militia, and Billy’s unit was trotting, with bayonets at the ready, along the edge of the bush towards that point where they had spotted the Yankee officer in action. When they approached the place-cautiously, for an ambush was a distinct possibility-they saw its attraction for those fleeing soldiers with enough presence of mind not to dash blindly for the dubious cover of Baby’s flammable barns. Just inside a line of cedars, a small creek meandered and then curved away into thick forest. The creek was iced over, and the dozen or so sets of bootprints upon its crusty surface suggested it was firm enough to hold a pack of frightened fugitives.
“They’ve scuttled up the crick!” Muttlebury declared. “They’ll leave us a trail a sick cat could follow.”
“It seems to twist and bend a bit, sir. Don’t you think we better be extra careful as we go?” Billy said.
“Yes, yes. We oughta be careful.”
“Whenever we come to a bend,” Billy said, “Mel an’ me’ll scout on ahead to make sure the coast is clear.”
“Good idea!” Mel cried, then realized he should have waited for his captain to speak first. But merchant Muttlebury had not noticed.
“The corporal and me useta go huntin’ together,” Billy explained. “We can tell what a creature is thinkin’ just from the tracks it leaves.”
“Good idea, good idea,” Muttlebury said, and so the unit proceeded, twenty strong with two outriders, in pursuit of the routed enemy and possibly a bigger prize.
Another hour found the pursuing troop somewhat less enthusiastic than they had been at the outset. The fourteen men they were trailing had stuck to the interminable winding of the creek and, so Sergeant McNair informed his charges, were retreating southwards in a steady, organized fashion. Each time they approached a sharp bend, Billy and Mel slipped into the woods on the inner curve and moved stealthily forward until they came to the next straightaway in the streambed, where they made sure all fourteen sets of boot-prints were safely visible in the middle of the creek before stepping out into the open and signalling the all clear.
“Just like old times!” Mel exulted.
“Yeah, ain’t it, though?” Billy said, as they waited for the captain and the others to trudge up to them. “But this fella leadin’ the retreat is no fool. He knows he’ll haveta leave this easy path sooner or later if he’s goin’ to make a break for the river and home.”