Chapter 51: Sisters

During one of the many lulls in the New York - Jersey campaign engendered by Howe's reluctance or inability to make up his mind, Captain Martin had a visit from his wife and her comely sister, Brigid. The captain was lieutenant Foster's commanding officer, and he volunteered himself to squire the sister about, hardly a hardship since she was so bright and pretty. I was dragooned to drive the chaise and stand guard while they picnicked and dallied in the glen from time to time.

One afternoon Foster was actually busy, and the captain and another young officer were in the party I drove out to a wooded hillside with a hamper of food and a few bottles of wine. It was near sunset and time to head back when the trouble occurred. I was brushing the horses and listening to the captain and his wife enjoy each other with grunts and squeals, when there were shots and screams. I grabbed my musket and hurried toward the sounds. Brigid appeared, running like the devil was right behind her. At just about the time she reached me and fell at my feet a man emerged at the treeline. He knelt and fired at us. I felt the ball whir past and took careful aim. My shot knocked him on his back, kicking, and I turned my attention to the wailing girl while I put my hands to reloading.

Her dress was torn from one shoulder and her hair was awry, but she did not seem hurt.

"They took Susie," she cried. "Took her way."

"What about the men?" I asked, ramming the charge home.

"I don' know," she moaned. "Oh lord."

"Go sit in the carriage," I said. I went cautiously into the woods and found the captain sitting on the ground with a bloody mouth, and then the young subaltern appeared from among the trees, seemingly unhurt but very shaky. There was no sign of the other woman.

"They jumped us," the captain moaned, his foreflap still undone. "Poor woman."

"Must'a been twenty a'them," the lieutenant said, his eyes round and frightened. "Nothing we could do."

"Two dozen at least," said the captain. "They took my wife away."

"We better go for help," the other man said.

I walked back to the carriage with them. Brigid was furious.

"Why aren't you after them?" she demanded. "Hurry!"

"There's one gun between the three of us," the captain explained, taking the reins and shaking off the grip of his wife's sister.

"We'll bring back the troop," the younger officer assured her. "Come on."

"No," the girl yelled, jumping down. "You're cowards. I'm going after her." She stalked toward the trees, and the officers left in a hurry. I caught up with her and held her arm. She tried to twist away and then fell against me, pounding my chest with her fists and then holding me tightly, sobbing. I patted her back and enjoyed the feel of her strong body until she calmed, and then we found the trail on the back side of the hill where she had last seen her sister and the attackers.

"I think there were six or seven of them. I was, well, rather busy, and that boy I was with ran and hid when the first shot was fired." She sniffed and pulled her dress higher on her shoulder.

The man I had shot was a ragged ruffian, middle-aged and poorly shod. He had crawled into the woods to die, but he had a musket and some powder so I took that to add to my own.

We followed a well worn trail that led to a clearing near a mountain brook, perhaps a mile away. From what I could hear as we approached, the robbers were celebrating their victory and deviling or raping the young woman. Her screams punctuated their drunken boasts. Brigid covered her ears and squatted behind a tree.

"Stay here," I told her in the gathering gloom. "Be quiet."

She nodded and sniffed. I loaded the spare musket and gave it to her with some brief instructions on its use. She seemed to understand and sat with the thing across her lap, a damn pretty woman, still furious and nearly popping out of her tight-fitting dress.

Worn tents encircled a campfire, and the men I could see were drinking and eating, passing an earthenware jug back and forth. I counted five. The screams and cries for help came from the tent on the far side of the circle so I crept through the woods and came up on it from the back. I put down my gun and slit open the back of the tent with my bayonet.

Suzanne's hands had been tied to the cot, but her legs were free, and she was making it very difficult for the man with his britches around his knees to do what he had in mind. I stepped into the tent, clamped my hand over his mouth and jabbed my big blade right through his throat, tearing out the front of his neck. He died quietly in a torrent of blood that flowed down the tent wall. I let him fall.

I cut the girl loose and pulled her out of the back of the tent and then ran, her wrist in my grip, until I was sure we were clear of the fire light. She was almost buck naked and blood spattered. She fell once, cried out and I shushed her. We found her sister where I had left her, and they embraced. I gave her my hunting shirt to wear over her torn shift. It covered her to the knees, and she almost laughed when she waved the long sleeves into which her hands had disappeared. She wiped some of the would-be rapist's blood from her face.

Suddenly the sound from the nearby camp changed from laughter to silence. Then there was a roar, an angry roar. "Come on," I whispered to the women, taking both rifles and heading back for the trail. We ran for several rods, before Suzanne cried, "I can't. My ankle's hurt."

I pulled them behind a big rock around which the trail bent, and we waited, puffing, to see if we were being pursued. We could hear men in the damp woods calling to each other, but it was too dark to see very much. I sent the two women on ahead along the well marked path, one supporting the limping other, and waited with both muskets cocked.

Patience was rewarded. In a few minutes two men crept past my hiding place, waving weapons from side to side, poking at bushes with their muzzles and whispering to each other. When they both had passed, I drew down in the nearest one, closed my eyes so the flash would not blind me temporarily, fired, opened my eyes, put down that weapon, picked up the other, and found my target. He had turned and was about to shoot at me. I closed my eyes and fired again just as the other man did. His ball hit the big stone beside me head high and flying fragments of lead and granite cut my forehead and cheek as it whirred away.

I grabbed my empty muskets and ran up the trail, jumped over the two writhing bodies, and soon caught up with the women. We made out way back to the clearing where I had waited with the carriage, and then I reloaded both muskets while they sobbed together for their misfortunes. We waited beside a fallen tree, listening for at least a half hour before I decided it was safe to talk about what we should do. My heart was still thumping hard, and I'm sure theirs were too. I felt the captain's wife's bare foot and found her ankle badly swollen.

"We can't stay here," Brigid whispered, her chest heaving. "They'd kill us in the morning if they don't find us tonight."

"Remember the inn we passed coming up the hill?" I asked, assuming the bandits were not going to blunder around in the dark and take more casualties. I guessed there were still three or four left out there somewhere and was sure they were pretty unhappy.

"I can't walk that far," Suzanne said, leaning on my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"I'll carry you. Your sister can tote our guns."

I got the woman up on my back, her knees on my ribs, my arms under her legs and her arms around my neck, and we started off. We walked fast for ten minutes, rested for a couple and then walked ten more minutes. She was not very heavy, but in some places the trees shadowed the road, and we had to proceed very carefully down its grassy verge. I enjoyed feeling her breasts rub against my ears.

"I'm hungry and these things are heavy," Brigid said at our second rest.

"Didn't you eat back yonder?" I asked, stretching my sore muscles and back bone.

"Ladies just nibble," she said with a smile I could see in the dark.

Three rests later we could see the glowing windows of the tavern.

"Either of you have any money?" I asked when I had recovered enough breath to talk at all. They looked at each other and shook their heads. I was penniless as well. "Hope they're charitable down there," I said as I picked the woman up in my arms and started down the hill enjoying the pleasant sensation of her head on my shoulder and her hip in my hand. Brigid followed, dragging the muskets' butts along the ground and complaining.

I put the woman down at the doorway, and we went in and found a table in a dark corner of the smoky room. No one seemed to notice my two muskets or bare chest, the torn condition of one girl's dress nor the fact that the other's bare legs showed and that she was shoeless. Everyone minded his own mug and pipe. It was just the kind of place we needed. I went to talk with the inn-keeper, a lean and taciturn man with a bad eye and terrible small pox scars on one side of his face.