Chapter 55: The Prisoner

Evidently it was some very influential local who had contacts with the Congress in Philadelphia that brought the problems of Dr. Flannery to Gen. Washington's attention. And eventually, through the chain of command, the problems and the job came to be Lt. Foster's and then mine. The story, as we got it, was that a local Tory of some means had been dispossessed of his home and, as if that were not enough, the Redcoats or the Hessians, he was not sure which, we holding his daughter for ransom and might be mistreating her.

"Let her starve," was my initial response since the problems involved Loyalists who were no friends of mine or of our cause. We were having enough problems with Howe's army, but this man had friends in high places so we had to make at least a token effort to see what could be done for him and his missing daughter.

With a letter from the good doctor in hand and a truce flag, the lieutenant and I, weaponless, except for my big knife of course, made our way to the farm near the river and a very impressive brick house with four high chimneys. The house, we found, was occupied by staff officers of both British and German regiments, but the guards were all Redcoats, hulking grenadiers. We were greeted correctly, offered food and drink, and then taken to see the young lady who, they admitted, was being held against her will.

"She's a damn'd mule, that one," our beardless escort told us. "Got no more manners than an stray cat. We been trying to teach her, least the captain has, but she refuses to cooperate."

The lieutenant looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "Why are you holding her?" he asked.

"We think she's been a spy for your side," the ensign said, "not that she's done real damage, and, though I suppose I shouldn't tell ya, she knows where there's a fortune buried. We're sure of that."

"But her father's loyal, isn't he?" said Lt. Foster as we came to a small, crude, windowless log cabin.

The subaltern nodded as he fitted his key to the large lock on the iron hasp. "That he is." He threw open the door. "Visitors, Miss, from your sire."

The girl sat on a cot built into the wall on the far side of the small structure. The room measured only about eight by perhaps fifteen feet with a cold hearth at one end. An old table and two worn chairs were the only furniture. A small bowl sat on the table and a stoneware jug on the floor. I did not see anything else worth noting.

"Tell them to go away," the woman said clearly, her voice remarkably steady and vibrant. She looked a perfect mess: hair unkempt, clothes dirty and ragged, feet bare. There was a heavy band of iron about one of her ankles and a long chain coiled near her feet. It was fastened to a turnbolt driven into one of the bottom logs near the middle of the room. Around her neck was a more narrow iron collar, fastened with a large bolt that sat beneath her chin. I had seen "dog collars" like that before on runaway servants and recalcitrant prisoners. Her face and arms were dirty, and her eyes seemed to glow with hatred. The dress she wore was the kind of thing poor farmers' wives dressed in to do their garden work, plain and shapeless, a kind of muddy brown homespun, gaping at her chest, torn at one shoulder.

"Miss Flannery?" said Lt. Foster with a slight bow. He doffed his hat as the door was locked behind us and the cabin settled into gloom with the only light coming under the door and through chinks in the walls. "May I sit down?"

She nodded, and he sat. I stood and admired her artless grace, fine-boned face and wonderful eyes as well as the rise and fall of her chest. She looked both unhappy and angry.

"Your father is worried about you. He sent this." Foster handed the woman a letter which she placed, unopened, in her lap.

"I've been here a fortnight. They treat me like a dog. Throw in food once a day. There's a hole in that corner I use as a privy." She pointed to a broken board in the floor, and I became conscious of the smell of the place.

"Why?" I said, and the lieutenant glared at me. His orders were that I should just watch and listen.

"They want to know where father buried his gold," she said. "That's why."

"Do they think you're a spy?" Foster asked, shaking his head.

The woman laughed, a short bark. She shook her head, tossing away the hair from her face. "They say that, but its just nonsense. They think we've hidden money here."

"Have you?" the lieutenant asked.

She clamped her mouth shut and glared at him. Then she looked at me with disdain. "What do you want?" she asked us both.

"We were sent," Foster said, "to see how you were and to ask for your release. Your father is very concerned."

"Is he?" she said. "They are going to start raping me on Monday. You can tell him that. They're his friends. Five men every day, the captain told me. He did it to me already, in the arse." She touched a bruise on her forehead. "Just so I could see what it was like, he said. He hit me, too. Said I needed breaking. Then he did it, grunting like a pig, bent over that table, sodomized me he did. Buggered I think you men call it."

"I'm sorry," I said and then covered my mouth with my hand. Under all the dirt and rags, she was a very pretty girl, perhaps my age, and obviously healthy and spitting angry.

"Will they do that?" asked Foster after he growled at me.

She nodded. "Then they are going to starting cutting off my fingers, one by one." She held up her left hand to show that her little finger was misssing two joints. The stump still looked raw. "He did that too, with a tomahawk, to show what it was like. Held it right on the table there." She sniffed and sat up very straight. "But I would not tell them or do what they want."

"What do they want?" Foster asked, sounding confused.

"The money, of course," she sighed, "and they want me to live up there, in my own bedroom, with my own clothes, and swive them, be their harlot, whore, mistress, whatever you'd call it. To do it willingly." She tugged at her iron collar, rotating the joint from under her chin, and then stood, dragging her chain across the wooden floor. She came and faced the lieutenant. I was surprised how small she was, barely five feet tall.

"Please," she said, putting a hand on his arm as he stood up, "get me out of here. Help me." She trembled, and I feared she would start to cry.

"We'll try," he said, standing and touching her shoulder. "We'll try." He gestured to me, and I hammered on the door.

"Leave me your knife," she said to me, looking at my big bayonet. "I'll cut my wrists and end this." Her forlorn look made me shudder.

Our guide unlocked the door and led us back to the house before I could even answer. She stood in the doorway with her hands together as if in prayer as he shut the door and locked it again.

"That was one of the slave quarters," he said. "Good joke, eh."

"Do you intend to mount her?" Lt. Foster asked him.

He smiled, chuckled, bowed us into the main house and left.

We argued and debated for an hour, refusing both food and drink, and got nowhere. "You tell her high and mighty father," said the British colonel who seemed to be in charge, "that he can have her back for two thousand in gold. We're sure he's buried his money here somewhere."

"She said that you, that your men have mistreated her, even violated her," Foster said. "A captain did her so she told us, buggered her."

"Never," said the colonel, but I noticed that the German behind him smiled and nudged his opposite number, a rotund captain in a tight-fitting grenadier uniform. The man made a crude gesture with his fist.

"She's missing a finger and the wound is fresh," my lieutenant said.

"Pity," said the colonel, dismissing us with a wave of his hand.

We left, disgruntled and concerned. We stopped at a tavern and ate when we were sure we had cleared the British lines.

"Can we get her out?" Foster asked. "How many men would it take?"

"She's a Tory," I said. "Besides, ah well, I suppose the two of us could do it if we were lucky."

"I must return immediately," he said, "orders. You want to try, at least scout it out?"

"If I can get to her, will you come and meet me with a fresh horse?"

He smiled and nodded. "You're on leave, twenty-four hours," he said.

I came through the British lines along a creek bed in a tangled old woods where the trees grew so densely it was hard to ride a horse. When I got in sight of the cabin, I tethered my animal and rested, planning in my head and wishing a could smoke a pipe but making do by chewing some of my twist of dark tobacco.

When the sun set, I moved closer to the cabin which seemed to be unguarded and dark. I had not noticed a lamp or candle when we were there, and the fireplace was empty of everything but ashes and what looked like a worm but was probably part of the girl's finger. There were still lights in the big house so I waited and watched, practicing patience, not one of my usual virtues if I have any. It must have been near midnight, when I heard a man coming from the house, singing quietly and the then the distinct sound of a large, iron lock being turned. A door creaked open and closed and then a woman screamed, "Get out." That was followed by a slap and a screech and the sounds of chain links clanking together.

I pulled out my bayonet and walked as quickly and quietly as I could to the back of the windowless cabin. I had planned on getting in through the roof, but now I had the chance to use the only door. The sound of grunts and scrabbling noises penetrated the log walls, and then I heard another blow struck and a cry and a laugh, a single outcry that might have been pleasure.

I pulled open the door and stepped into the dark, dank room. I left the door open and the starlight showed me a coatless man struggling with the small woman on the narrow cot, her bare legs kicking at him and the chain whipping around between them.

I reached him in two steps, grabbed his clubbed queue to pull him from the bed. His wig came away and I quickly grasped his collar. He gasped, cursed and I clamped my hand over his mouth, pulled him to me and stabbed him in the middle of his back. I saw my blade come through his heaving chest followed by a gout of blood. I kept his mouth covered until he became limp and then I pulled out the knife and let him fall. A glance showed that it was the young ensign who had unlocked the door for us that afternoon. His foreflap was undone and his limp member dangly freely.

The woman sat trembling on her bed, her knees pulled up to her chin.

"You hurt?" I asked, sheathing my blade after I wiped it on the dead man's sleeve. His pale belly and shrunken privates gleamed in the faint light and his dark blood was a spreading lake that dripped through the floor board cracks.

She shook her head, making the iron collar swivel.

I took her hand, put the dead man's uniform jacket over her thin shoulders and led her across the body and to the place where she was fastened to the wall. Her arm felt strong and warm. I ran chain back through the turnbolt until I had about a yard on each side. Then I sat, braced my feet on the wall, grabbed the chain in both hands and slowly pulled the ring from the wall. I rolled the chain around my arm, took the girl's hand and led her out into the woods after locking the door behind us.

"Where are we going?" she whispered, almost running to keep up with me, pulling the jacket to her belly.

"Away," I said, doing my best to hurry as the dangling chain kept tangling in the underbrush. She cried out from time to time as her bare feet met roots, sharp stones and pine cones. After some rather frantic searching, I found my horse, helped her aboard and roped the chain to the saddle and blanket roll behind her. I held the reins and walked them out of the woods along the creek bed.

It was near dawn when we reached the tavern where Lt. Foster and I had stopped. I was falling asleep on my feet and the young woman was nodding in the saddle. I helped her down, stabled the horse, and then the two of us and her twelve feet of chain tumbled into an empty stall and were almost instantly asleep, curled against each other for warmth.

I awoke, groggy, when the sun reached my eyes and then I joggled the girl awake. I led her to a small anvil visiting farriers probably used, found a hammer and a sharp chisel and cut through her chain with a couple of hefty blows. Both the clamp on her ankle and the narrow collar around her throat had been crudely fastened with hammered rivets so I did not attempt to deal with either of those. I did bring back a couple of buckets of hot water from the kitchen and invited her to wash herself some while I stood guard.