“You’ll be all right, Sally,” he said fiercely. “I’ll marry you! Won’t make a blind bit of difference to me. I mean—your—your arm.” He swallowed, hard, and I realized that he needed water, too, and passed over the canteen.
“Like . . . hell,” Sally said. Her eyes were dark and bright as unfired coal in her white face. “I won’t—be married for pity. Damn . . . you. Nor guilt. Don’t . . . need you!”
The young man’s face was blank with surprise—and, I thought, affront.
“Well, what are you going to live on?” he demanded, indignant. “You don’t own a thing in this world but that damned uniform! You—you—” He pounded a fist on his leg in frustration. “You can’t even whore, with one arm!”
She glared at him, breathing slow and hard. After a moment, a thought crossed her face and she nodded a little and turned to me.
“You reckon the army might . . . pay me . . . a pension?” she asked.
I could see Denzell now, blood-splattered but collected, hurrying across the gravel with the box of surgical instruments. I would have sold my soul for ether or laudanum, but had neither. I took a deep breath of my own.
“I expect they will. They’ll give Molly Pitcher one; why not you?”
IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME
WILLIAM TOUCHED his jaw gingerly, congratulating himself that Tarleton had only managed to hit him in the face once, and it hadn’t been in the nose. His ribs, arms, and abdomen were another matter, and his clothes were muddy and his shirt rent, but it wouldn’t be apparent to a casual observer that he’d been in a fight. He might just get away with it—so long as Captain André didn’t happen to mention the dispatch to the British Legion. After all, Sir Henry had had his hands full during the morning, if half what William had heard along his way was true.
A wounded infantry captain on his way back to camp had told of seeing Sir Henry, in command of the rear guard, lead a charge against the Americans, getting so far out to the front that he was nearly captured before the men behind came up to him. William had burned, hearing this—he would have loved to be part of that. But at least he hadn’t stayed mewed up in the clerks’ tent. . . .
He was no more than a quarter mile along his way back to Cornwallis’s brigade when Goth threw a shoe. William said something very bad, pulled up, and swung down to have a look. He found the shoe, but two nails had gone and a quick search didn’t turn them up; no chance of hammering it back on with the heel of his boot, which had been his first thought.
He shoved the shoe in his pocket and looked round. Soldiers swarmed in every direction, but there was a company of Hessian grenadiers on the opposite side of the ravine, forming up at the bridgehead. He led Goth across, stepping gingerly.
“Hallo!” he called to the nearest fellow. “Wo ist der nächste Hufschmied?”
The man glanced indifferently at him and shrugged. A young fellow, though, pointed across the bridge and called out, “Zwei Kompanien hinter uns kommen Husaren!” Hussars are coming, two companies behind!
“Danke!” William called back, and led Goth into the sparse shade of a stand of spindly pines. Well, that was luck. He wouldn’t have to walk the horse a long way; he could wait for the farrier and his wagon to come to him. Still, he fretted at the delay.
Every nerve was keyed tight as a harpsichord string; he kept touching his belt, where his weapons would normally be. He could hear the sounds of musket fire in the far distance, but couldn’t see a thing. The countryside was folded up like a leporello, rolling meadow diving suddenly into wooded ravines, then springing back out, only to disappear again.
He dug out his handkerchief, so soggy by now that it served only to sluice the sweat from his face. He caught a faint breath of coolness wafting up from the creek, forty feet below, and walked nearer the edge in hopes of more. He drank warm water from his canteen, wishing he could scramble down and drink from the stream, but he daren’t; he might get down the steep slope without trouble, but coming back up would be an awkward climb, and he couldn’t risk missing the farrier.
“Er spricht Deutsch. Er gehört!” Heard what? He hadn’t been paying attention to the grenadiers’ sporadic conversation, but these hissed words came to him clearly, and he glanced round to see who it was they were saying spoke German, only to see two of the grenadiers quite close behind him. One of them grinned nervously at him, and he stiffened.
Suddenly two more were there, between him and the bridge. “Was ist hier los?” he demanded sharply. “Was machst Ihr da?” What is this? What are you doing?
A burly fellow pulled an apologetic face.
“Verzeihung. Ihr seid hier falsch.”
I’m in the wrong place? Before William could say anything more, they closed on him. He elbowed, punched, kicked, and butted wildly, but it didn’t last more than a few seconds. Hands pulled his arms behind him, and the burly fellow said once more, “Verzeihung,” and, still looking apologetic, bashed him in the head with a rock.
He didn’t lose consciousness altogether until he hit the bottom of the ravine.
THERE WAS THE devil of a lot of fighting, Ian thought—but that was about all you could say about it. There was a good deal of movement—particularly among the Americans—and whenever they met with a group of redcoats, there was fighting, often ferocious fighting. But the countryside was so irregular, the armies seldom came together anywhere in large numbers.
He had found his way around several companies of British infantry more or less lying in wait, though, and beyond this vanguard were a goodly number of British, regimental banners in the midst of them. Would it help to know who was in command here? He wasn’t sure he could tell, even if he was close enough to make out the details of the banners.