Chapter 29: The British Major's Make-believe Wife

"I hear tell that regiment of foot in New Brunswick's got a new commander, a right smart one they say."

I stood in front of Lt. Foster and waited. He seldom told us anything just for practice.

"Feller's eager to make a reputation. That's what I heard."

I shifted my weight to the other foot.

"Reckon we ought to find out, maybe slow him down a might."

'Suppose," I said.

"Why don't you go in an' see what's what?" he said, examining a sore on his arm.

"Alone?" I said.

"Everybody's busy but you," he said.

"Yes, sir," I said.

New Brunswick was one of those places where the British had built a regular barracks with crowded quarters for their men, much more room for the officers, a court yard and flagpole out front and lots of storage space underneath. I hung around the local saloon until I gathered up what I could about the new major called Rogers who seemed to be both a spit and polish man as well as an experienced fighter. He was sending our patrols, drilling his people hard, establishing outposts and looking for trouble. Pretty unusual in Howe's army.

"He got a wife?" I asked the man I was drinking with.

"Yep," he said, "pretty l'il thing, 'bout half his size, all lace and bows and such. Came with trunks of clothes and doodads."

That was not really unusual, but a number of British officers had adopted the custom of having a woman for their pleasure in the colonies who was not a true wife, but simply a convenience, a mistress with the name of wife. I wondered which this woman was and whether or not it mattered. I stayed around another day, got one good look at the man my lieutenant was so interested in and rode back to our camp, some ten miles off.

"He's a fighter, do doubt. Peninsula veteran, heavy legged, broad shouldered, loud voiced, all the usual things. And he believes in discipline. I saw two men flogged in the three days I was there."

Foster nodded. "Sounds like trouble," he said.

"We can likely draw them out if you want to," I said.

"Us against a regiment of lobsters, hah," he said, "I don't think so."

Since his company got up to twenty men rarely and had a dozen more usually, that made sense.

"Why don't you just take your good rifle, find a spot where they can't see you, and put a lead ball in his tiny brain."

"That an order?" I asked.

"Go try," he said. "Take a week, be careful. I want you and that rifle back, leastways the rifle."

I nodded and set off. The first thing I found when I got back to New Brunswick was that Major Rogers was on a wide swinging tour of his area and then would be going to New York for orders. He was not expected back for a fortnight. I sat and ordered another beer, studied the waiting wenches and decided none was worth the effort and headed for the barracks after carefully stowing my weapons.

I lounged about, watching the officers' quarters, and in mid-afternoon a dainty woman that I had not seen before came down the steps with a basket on her arm and headed for the market. She was a pretty thing with light brown curls bobbing, breasts the size and shape of coffee cups, a narrow waist and a good, long stride. She fit the description. I wished George was around so we could set up a situation where I could rescue her but decided I might be able to improvise. I trailed along after her, looking for an opportunity.

It came an hour or so later when two bare-headed men emerged from the local tavern, barely holding each other upright and stepped right in front of the dainty damsel.

"Lor," said one, "wha' has we 'ere?'

"Nice piece a'ass, I'd say," said the other, guffawing at his own jest and scratching his dirty groin.

"Out all alone, missy?" said the first, reaching for the woman's basket, now full of flowers.

"No," said I, stepping forward, slapping his hand away and getting between the drunken men and the big-eyed girl. "Get along." I said calmly.

The one on my left pulled a knife from his belt, and I kicked him in the ballocks. He fell, rolled over and screamed while his friend looked at me coldly. "'Ere," he said, fumbling for the pistol in the back of his belt, "why'd ye do that, y'big son'abitch?"

I cuffed him around, took his pistol and tossed it aside, shoved him back to the roadside wall, drove a good right into his gut, and heaved him over the wall, picked up his writhing friend and dropped him on top of the first, then I dusted my hands and turned for my thanks. She was gone.

Back at another local inn, I found a man who worked for the Redcoats. "Oh, aye," he said, he had seen the new mistress of the place and wasn't she pretty and "dumb as a stump," he said. "Has no idea what's going on," he continued. I asked a few more questions and then rode back to camp.

Foster decided we could capture the man on his way to New York, pump him dry and exchange him for one or more of our captured officers. We waited a week and then laid an ambush, one the few things at which we were good, and waited. The next morning the major, his wife and her maid were our prisoners and there were seven dead and nearly naked infantrymen moldering in the roadside ditches, stripped of their valuables, boots and weapons.

Foster questioned the fuming major who had a scratch on his forehead from some dubious bravery during the ambush, and then sent him on up the chain of command. That left us with two unattached females to look after, a difficult assignment, but one we were willing to risk. The maid, a woman of thirty or so, a Scot I believe, indentured, was very amiable and soon had bedded all the company and settled into a routine that brought her an eager lover and a few shillings two or three times a day.

The major's wife was another matter entirely. We dragooned Michael, by agreement the handsomest of Foster's men, a mean-spirited killer and quick-witted seducer of women who looked like a choirboy, to make the first approach, and he was in her bed the second day her husband was gone, and then back reporting to us the next morning, looking very glum. "Pretty, willing, stupid and numb," he pronounced her. "Y'might as well stick it in a ball of bread dough for all the life in her. Yeast's got more."

So I sent for my friend George. I could not believe Michael had failed to find pleasure after getting between the girl's legs. It had never happened before, and he had cozened dozens of young women much to the joy of himself and of others, including the women.

George, I had been told, was absolutely tireless until he had fully spent himself and then he was done for the day, but he sometimes rogered for an hour or more without pause if he had been well fed and reasonably rested. I was always proud when I could do a hundred in and out strokes, but I think George could do a thousand. I sicced him on the girl. He introduced himself as a friend of Michael's, was invited into her tent and spent the night in the young matron's smooth arms. He was back before I had stirred up my breakfast fire.

"Useless slut," he said. "Dead meat. She lies there like a corpse, legs and arms wide spread, a smile on her lovely face, wasted efforts, that's what it is. Forget her, jus' puddin'." He stalked off, disgusted, saying his left hand was better.

I now had invested some five days and was back at square one not knowing when this idyll might suddenly end. So I visited the young lady, knuckled my forehead, and said, "Mistress Rogers, I don't expect you remember me, but..."

She looked at me with china-blue eyes, cocked her head to the side, put her finger to her lips and smiled. "But I do," she said musically, "those two ruffians a few weeks back, in the market."

"Indeed," I said. "You've a good memory."

"Have you heard anything about my poor husband?" she said, taking my elbow. She was, she said to my question, Major Cornelius Rogers' true and faithful wife of some eight months. I winced at the "faithful." He had wed her in New York and accepted her dowry happily. She was nineteen, had never seen the inside of a school, could neither read nor write, and, I suspect, was sure the world was flat. But she was pretty and lively.

"If you don't read," I asked carefully, "what do you do for pleasure?"

She looked down at her feet with her heavily-lashed eyes and bit her lip. "Can't tell you," she said, "but when my Corny is here, we do it two or three times a day. First thing every morning, sometimes before dinner, and always at night."

"You don't," I said, lifting her chin and smiling at her, pleasantly, I hoped. I had shaved that morning and was reasonably clean for a change.

"Oh yes. He enjoys it so." She giggled quietly and covered her mouth with her hands. "You should hear him."

"And you?" I asked.

"Well, I like to please him. My father told me it was my duty to please men."

We walked in the sunshine, ignoring the other soldiers at their usual duties. "And does it please you?" I asked quietly, holding her elbow tightly so our hips touched.