“With consummate pleasure, dear Sarah,” he said happily as he stood up. What a wonderful day. He’d seen a beautiful woman nearly naked and still managed to keep his secrets from her.
* * *
Is this going to happen every night? Fitzroy was nearly dead from lack sleep. The attacks on the column had resulted in a half dozen deaths and several wounded. Worse, they had kept everyone in a state of alarm which prevented anyone from getting a good night’s sleep.
“Bullets I can understand,” said Burgoyne, “but this?”
Burgoyne held a length of metal in his hand. General Grant took it from him and laughed harshly. “Crossbow bolt. Jesus, are the rebels that destitute? We’ll overrun them with ease when we reach their miserable town if this is all they have. It’ll probably be like a mud and wattle village from some depressing part of Ireland and not a proper city after all.”
“I don’t doubt that the town will prove to be crudely made,” Burgoyne said. “But I do wonder if this weapon is as crude as it appears.”
Fitzroy wondered as well. Some of the previous day’s and night’s casualties had come from gunfire, but the crossbow attacks had come with the silence of a poisonous snake striking. The men were definitely disconcerted by something that could wound or kill before anyone was aware that anything had occurred.
“Do you suggest more patrols, General?” Fitzroy asked of Burgoyne.
“Indeed, and I want more men awake and prowling around during the night. Some may be tired during the next day’s march, but at least they’ll be alive and the others will have rested.”
Fitzroy thought that the added patrols would further slow the column, which was already plodding and beginning to fall behind schedule.
As they spoke, a horse screamed and bucked. They ran to it and saw a length of metal protruding from its flank. The horse staggered and fell to the ground, clearly mortally wounded.
“Fucking bastards!” screamed Grant. “That was my best horse!”
* * *
For the women at Fort Washington, the training that some had taken on as a lark had taken on a high degree of intensity. The British were finally coming.
Will watched as Sarah, now a squad leader, led her charges through their drills. They had learned to carry extra muskets, load them for the men, and use their pikes with surprisingly deadly efficiency. They had also learned to carry wounded off the field and care for them. They had practiced on dummies and willing volunteers, but they all knew there was no way to duplicate the sounds, smell, and terror of the battlefield. They were as untested as so many of the male soldiers were. When the time came, some would collapse, and some would run in panic, while others would perform admirably and even heroically. And no one really knew who among them would do what.
Will was filled with admiration for Sarah as she grew as a leader. Always strong-willed, she had become much more. And she was not alone. Many women, young and old, had become forces in the community. Some men had openly wondered just what monsters they were creating. Would women ever again be subservient? Others had laughed and said that women had never been subservient, they had only pretended.
The drilling ended and the women put down their pikes. They picked up new weapons that had only recently been provided-maces. They were spike-pointed iron clubs straight out of the Middle Ages. Once again Franklin had gone to the past to help fight for the future. Everyone was getting one and Will had one tucked in his belt. They were crude, but, in close quarters, they might prove effective. At least they would surprise the hell out of the enemy, Will thought. One blow could easily crush a skull and if the enemy soldier tried to block the mace with his arm, the bones would be shattered. The maces were not light and someone commented just how easily the women now wielded them. What weaker sex, another chuckled, repeating the old joke.
The women practiced wielding the maces, first with one hand and then the other and, finally, with both hands, whirling and clubbing. Valkyries, Will thought, recalling what he’d read of Nordic legends. Or maybe they were Amazons brought back from ancient Greece.
Sarah tucked her mace in the belt that bound her dress and walked over to will. Her face was slick and shiny with sweat. He thought she was beautiful.
Sarah took his arm and they walked away from the crowd. It was an open gesture of affection that would have been unthinkable a few months before. Affection was supposed to be private. So too were passion and lust.
“When are you leaving?” she asked.
“Tonight.”
“I’ll be miserable without you.”
Will took a deep breath, “And I without you.”
“I still don’t understand what you hope to accomplish by going all that way just to see what the British are doing and what we are doing about it. Why not just wait? They’ll be here soon enough.”
Why not indeed? Will had argued exactly that point. But he had lost. Tallmadge wanted someone from his staff to actually see what was happening. How effective were the riflemen like Owen Wells in fighting the British in the forests? How did the British react? What about Brant’s Indians and Girty’s white savages? Oh, they got frequent reports, both by pigeon and by courier, but they were words on paper. Tallmadge, and Stark above him, wanted an eyewitness. Will could only hope he didn’t get himself killed before the climactic battle began.
Chapter 14
The six bedraggled men huddled together, wet and miserable and too exhausted to even strain at their bonds. Not that it would have helped. Their captors only waited for an excuse to kill them. All of them were wounded to some degree, which, in the eyes of their angry captors, entitled them to neither mercy nor pity.
Fitzroy glared at them. “What unit?”
“King’s Royal Butt-fuckers,” a man with a bandage on his forehead answered, drawing smiles from the others.
One of the British soldiers guarding them snarled and swung his musket butt, smashing it into the man’s face. Blood and teeth flew and he flopped to the ground, his jaw broken. The lack of discipline dismayed Fitzroy, but he understood it. These rebels had been murdering British soldiers, ambushing them, shooting them in the back. Americans who’d been killing soldiers in the night were objects of a deep hatred.
“How many of them are branded?” Tarleton asked. Fitzroy was taken aback. He hadn’t been aware that the young general was even present.
Guards checked and reported that five of them wore brands, identifying them as rebels who’d fought before against the king and his army. Tarleton grinned wickedly. “Well now, they doubtless know their future, don’t they?”
Fitzroy reached into a pile of their belongings and pulled out a crossbow. He examined it for a moment and handed it to Tarleton who found it amusing at first, but quickly turned angry.
“A coward’s weapon,” he said and tossed it back. He grinned wolfishly at the number of British soldiers who’d gathered around them. “I’ve changed my mind. Hanging’s too pleasant for them. Do whatever you wish,” he said. He whirled and walked away.
As Fitzroy gaped in astonishment, the surrounding soldiers roared and set about the helpless prisoners, hitting them with musket butts and stomping them with their feet. Then they began to stick them with bayonets. The Americans screamed in fear and agony while Tarleton laughed uproariously. It was over in a minute. The six prisoners had been reduced to a bloody, broken pile of almost unrecognizable flesh.
Tarleton glared at Fitzroy. “And don’t you dare tell me how this is going to affect any rebels surrendering. I don’t want them to surrender, Fitzroy. I want them to die. Every Goddamned one of them.”
Fitzroy returned his glare. “I wouldn’t treat a hog like you treated those men.”
“And I wouldn’t either,” Tarleton replied evenly. “Hogs are valuable.”