Chapter 4: Enjoying the Widow Young

By the end of March 1776, some patriot units had disbanded and what was left of Washington's army was moving slowly south. Most of the enlistments in my rag-tag company expired, and we were told to head for the city of New York if we wanted to stay in the fight. I think most went home. But I meandered southward with some friends that fine spring, a dozen or so of us, convinced by what I had learned by spying that the British would be back and eager for a fight.

We were passing through a small town in Connecticut which does not help locate it very much since Connecticut was full of small towns and most of them looked pretty much alike, white church, village square and all. I guess the point is, I don't remember its name. This one was up in the hills a ways and had two churches.

Anyhow, we stopped to eat outside an inn and before we could get much more than two bites tucked away, the happy townsfolk jumped us, attacked us with pitchforks, blunderbusses, hatchets, anything they could use as a weapon. A real melee, full of screams and running about. There were dozens of them and only ten of us. We scattered, but they caught two of our men and hacked them to death. Sometimes I can hear their screams, and I still wonder if I could have saved them, but in my heart I know I could not.

I scrambled into an old barn and probably covered my ears and tried to make myself as small as possible while my friends perished, pleading for help and mercy. I guess the barn could not have been too old way out there, but it smelled abandoned and sat behind the ruins of a burned cabin, leaning precariously leeward with holes in the roof, pigeons in the stalls, and some boards already stolen away.

I sat quietly while the small, bloodthirsty mob of perhaps a score men surged around and ended up at the tavern, hauling the mangled remains of my two comrades behind them. They hung them from a tree by their feet and went in for a wet leaving the mangled remains swinging and attracting flies and crows.

We evidently had run into a town full of angry Tories, and I wondered, as my hunger reminded me, if there were any patriot families about. From what I had seen, if there where, they kept their heads down and minded their own business. About sundown, the tavern began spitting out men in twos and threes. I could no longer see what had happened to the bodies they had left hanging in the square. When the moon came up, I went down the rickety ladder with the intent of getting myself out of that town as quickly and quietly as I could.

About the time my feet hit the dirt floor, two men came walking by, one of them toting a lamp and both of them carrying long guns on their shoulders.

"Anybody look in there?" one asked.

"Spose," said the other.

"Let's take a gander, nohow," said the first, and they wandered through the opening where the door had been in better days, outlined by the rising moon. I pressed myself back against the wall, but I guess the combination of the moonlight and their flickering lantern was enough. I expect they saw something move but were not sure what.

"Come out a'there," one said, extra loudly.

"We got guns, rebel," said the other as they both backed up to stand framed in the doorway. My piece was primed and loaded, but I sure did not want to shoot at them and wake the whole bloodthirsty town. I fixed my spike bayonet to the muzzle of my musket as quietly as I could, took a deep breath and ran straight at them, bending low, zigging left and right and hoping surprise might do me some good. It was only about ten steps, but it felt like a mile. I think I yelled at them, too, in the last couple of strides.

I knocked the man with the lantern over on his back with my shoulder, his lamp flying one way and his gun another, and ran the other one through before he could even bring his half-cocked shotgun to bear. He yelled in pain as I drove him back, feet kicking, to the missing door's center post. I pulled out my sticker and jabbed him again, looking squarely into his wide-eyed face. Blood poured blackly from his mouth and nose, and I yanked my bayonet out of his chest and let him fall.

The first man scrambled up and jumped on my back with a curse, clawing at my face. I threw him over my shoulder. He landed atop the still-quivering body, and I stabbed him too, several times until he stopped kicking and moaning. I dragged the bodies back into the barn, rummaged through their pockets and found one heavy purse. Then I kicked straw, a couple of splintered boards and some leaves over them, sheathed my wet bayonet and got back on the road south, moving as fast as I could toward New York, our general destination since we left Boston. Ten minutes later I remembered that I had not bothered to find their weapons or the lantern. I wondered if it was still lit.

I had not gone far and had passed several small cottages before a husky voice loudly whispered, "Hey, what's goin' on out there?"

I kept walking and ignored the call.

"Hist," the voice said. "You one a'them minuteman rebels?"

I got off the road and crouched behind a stone wall, seeing to my musket.

"You hungry?" asked the husky voice in a slightly louder tone.

That got me since I was ravenous and was feeling the after effects of whatever juices had run through me back at the barn while I was killing two men the hard way, face to face. I could still hear the blood in my ears and feel it on my hands.

"We ain't all Tories 'round here," the voice said. "Come on in." A door opened slowly and let out a sliver of yellow light, and I saw that the voice belonged to a small youngster with unruly hair. My stomach decided to take a chance, and I scurried into the cabin and closed the door behind me. Two barefoot boys and a slightly older and equally barefoot girl faced me, smiling.

"You a soldier?" the voice belonging to the boy with the wild hair asked, no longer trying to whisper.

I nodded and rested my musket against the wall by the door.

"We heerd 'em chasing you around out there, saw the two they chopped up, poor fellers," said the girl. "Come sit down."

"Where's your folks?" I asked, perching on a bench at the rude table.

"Black fever got 'em las' year," the larger boy said. The younger one was yet to speak and just stared at me. I tried a smile on him, and he smiled back and came to sit beside me.

"Sorry," I said, tearing off a piece of bread from the round loaf the girl put on the table. It was good bread. I gave the small boy a piece.

She ladled some thin stew from the pot at the fireplace and poured me a cup of water. I ate, she refilled the bowl and I ate that too and finished the loaf. I pulled out the purse I had taken from the dead man and dumped the coins out on the table. I gave her half and kept a few shillings for myself since I had lost my last one the day before turning cards with one of my mates. It was the last time I would use his deck, and I hoped he was not one of the ones dangling from a limb this night. I wanted to get my money back.

The girl bobbed her head and smiled her thanks, and I said mine and complemented her poor and saltless stew. "You could stay the night here, but they're likely to be out looking at dawn, an' they knows we ain't with 'em."

I nodded, mopping the wooden bowl with the last crust of bread.

"What happened at the barn?" the smaller boy asked.

"Didn't know you could talk," I said, ruffling his hair. "We had a little fight."

"I saw the two men with a lantern go by," the girl said.

I looked at her. "They're still up there," I said.

"Oh," she said. "They'll be missed soon. They're the night watch, them two."

"You better git," said the older boy.

"Go through the woods to the creek, turn left, upstream, and the first place you come to, 'bout a mile, is the Widow Young's. Tell her that the Springs sent you, and she'll take you in. You'll be safe there for the night nohow."

"She's one a'the few rebels round here. Her man was killed up north, Dorchester I think, a Minuteman, back las' summer," the boy said.

I shook all three hands, thanked them and picked up my musket. Just as I was about to open the door, somebody hallooed outside and then yelled, "Call out the watch!"

I blew out the candle, crept into the dark and headed for the woods, tripping and falling over roots three or four times before I slowed down. Just about the time I was feeling fat and happy, out of woods as it were, a local with a long gun stepped out from behind a tree. The starlight showed me his smile, and it was not pleasant.

"Hole it," he said very calmly. He did not bother to point his weapon in my direction and mine was in the crook of my arm, loaded and primed. I still did not want to make any noise if I could avoid it, not after seeing what they did to my friends.

Chapter 5 »