Chapter 100: A shot at Cornwallis

Suzanne showed up again late in the retreat and stayed with us all the way into Pennsylvania. By then many things had changed, and she was a lissome widow with many randy admirers. But when I first saw her again, she was still the captain's wife, and we were out trying to kill Cornwallis. That was the plan. We would circle around the British, come up from behind and ambush the headquarters company.

Foster's company, of course, got the scouting job, and we actually found Lord Cornwallis and his staff, left a man behind to trail them and reported back. I know his name, the man we left behind, but I rather not tell it. That's when I saw Suzanne. She smiled at me, and I squeezed her plump thigh. She was as pretty as I remembered and as exciting to think about bedding as almost anyone I've known.

Off we went with no time for dalliance, a score of us, heavily armed and as well mounted as we could be. I led, and we found my friend, the one we had left behind at the appointed meeting place. He told us where the British leaders were camped, and the next morning Suzanne's husband led the attack and was one of the first to fall.

The Redcoats were waiting, and we ran right into a trap. Evidently they had captured and turned my friend, forced or bribed him to betray us and damn near wiped us out. We came creeping through the woodline, bunched together because of the ravine back of their camp, edging toward a neat row of tents where men were tending cookfires. Everything looked quiet and proper when up popped a double row of Redcoats, maybe forty or fifty of them. The first line presented, fired and then knelt to reload as the second took two steps forward, and fired another volley.

We scattered, those of us who managed to survive the first two volleys. After that they came at us with the bayonet. I do not believe any wounded were left alive, and we never heard that any prisoners were taken. My friend simply disappeared, vanished after holding his belly and feigning the soldiers' disease as we started to move forward.

It took me almost a week to get back to the army. I think four of us made it out of the twenty that went on that raid. I reported to Lt. Foster and then found Suzanne. I took her to the captain's tent where she had been waiting, held her in my arms for a time, kissed her eyes, her ears, her cheeks, her mouth and then her mouth again, sat her down and told her that her loving husband was dead. She sniffed, but she did not cry.

"How?" she asked, holding my arm. I must have smelled and looked awful after six days in the woods, sleeping in hollows and living off roots and berries.

"Shot," I said, "twice. First one hit his leg and he stumbled, second struck his head and he fell. I was almost right beside him. He was likely dead 'fore he hit the ground."

She nodded.

"I'm sorry," I said, petting her hip, feeling my lust flame up.

"Um," she said, "part a'being a soldier."

"We were betrayed, tricked," I said. "Damn shame."

"Go clean up," she said with a tight smile, "and come make love to me."

She did not have to tell me twice. I plunged myself in the cold creek, scraped off my whiskers, found some nearly clean britches and another of my long tailed shirts a lissome lady had sewed up for me, and was back at the captain's tent faster than you can cook a hoe cake, still damp. We did not waste any time with words but got right to the fleshy part, joined our bodies and wore each other out. Then she lay in my arms, soft and warm, and cried. She sobbed and shook, and I held her and petted her head and stroked her heaving back.

After a while, she stopped, pulled away, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, said, "Thank you," and got herself dressed while I lay on the dead captain's cot and admired her lush body. She even put on her stays and I helped her lace them up, standing there and hoping for more. "Go on," she told me, "I got things to do. You can come back tonight."

I dressed and left, my ballocks aching.

"We're going back out there and hit them," Lt. Foster said when he found me, "go find 'em."

"You mean now?" I whined. "I jus' got back."

"Yer clean, fed, and laid," he yelled in my face. "I'll see she don't lack for company. Now git!"

Damn randy officer. He always did have an eye for his captain's missus, thought I as I rolled up my blanket, drew my ammunition, and mounted a raw boned horse we had stolen someplace or other. I hated to think about Foster between Suzanne's legs, but I knew that's right where he would be by the time the sun went down. By then I was deep in the woods, trying not to be seen by a Hessian patrol.

I slept cold and hungry, rose hard and needy, rode on and the third day found some sign of the headquarters company of the unit that had been harassing us for a month. I had a rifle as well as a musket and heavy pistol so I found a small knoll where I could watch them make camp, hoping I might get a shot at an officer or two before I had to run for it.