Chapter 56: Margy

In mid-August I entered Portsmouth to find the town almost deserted. I guess it was still technically in British hands because that flag flew on the docks and at the magazine, but the royal presence was much diminished. Margy sat with me drinking beer and describing the exodus of Cornwallis and his troops.

"You should a'seen some of the women he took off with him. Ew, the smell," she held her nose and laughed.

"So business has been kind a'slack?"

"Right, an' they closed Arnold's whorehouse, so you know it's all over."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Gonna wait. See which husband comes this way first. I'll go with him, wherever he wants."

"Which husband? How many you got, girl?"

"Hm," she said, scratching an eyebrow, "Four or five. Ain't sure Danny's still alive. He were the Welsh sailor, y'know. Think his ship went down in a storm."

"I didn' know you had even one," I said.

"Girl's got t'live," she said. "You gonna sleep here?"

"Got no place else," I said. "You mind?"

"You're the same size and shape?"

"Spect so."

"We'll manage. I still got that gold guinea you give me. An' I think I'm still sore from the las' time you horsed me. Must a'had two hundred men since then, but I still can feel you plowing my insides."

I was looking forward to that when a large hand gripped my shoulder. I looked up into a beefy face and saw two Redcoats with shoulder-slung, bayonet-tipped muskets behind it. "Get up ye damne'd cob," the man said.

I twisted out of his grip and stood. The big man poked me in the chest with his forefinger. "Yer my prisoner," he growled, "you bleedin' rebel. Think we'll take the whore too. Serve her right for talking with a shit like you."

I was unarmed except for the knife in my boot, but I certainly could not afford to waste any time in a British gaol so I hit the man low in the belly and then pulled his head down and smashed his face onto the table top. I stepped past him and hit the first surprised soldier I came to in the face. He fell back into his companion and tripped over a table as I pulled his musket from his shoulder. The narrow, low ceilinged room gave me an advantage since the three of them had no room to maneuver. I swung the Brown Bess like a club into the ribs of the other man before he could unlimber his weapon and then hit the gun's owner in the groin with good results. I turned my back on the two of them as the bulky provost marshal recovered and came at me with a growl, getting a horse pistol from his belt.