Chapter 57: Captured

The men who captured me were a mix of Scots and Germans under the command of a young Englishman with an aristocratic look and a sadistic streak. His mixed and motley company had been out stealing horses when they found me late one morning disporting myself in a barn with a young maiden who had been around the track a few times. We were so busy with our efforts to please each other that neither of us heard the horsemen approach until they were in the barnyard.

The girl squealed, slithered out from under me and ran for the woods while I pulled up my breeches and tried to remember where I had stashed my musket. My pistol and bayonet were at hand but, I decided, of little use, so I covered them with straw, grabbed a pitchfork and tried to look like a farmer.

Before I could do anything useful, two riders were in the barn, and I was standing with my hands raised hoping this bunch did take prisoners alive. Both sides had become rather lax in that matter, especially the mercenaries. We seldom took German prisoners by then. They all seemed determined to try to escape and got themselves shot in the back.

The slim young officer had me tied to a post while he and his men ransacked the house and rounded up the best of the horses. I'm sure I heard a woman being raped at one point, but then things got very quiet. The soldiers built a fire, sat and ate and drank while the officer discussed something or other with his beefy sergeant.

"We've decided not to take you with us. Prisoners are such a bother." He smiled up at me. "German's'd like to use you for bayonet practice. Ever see them do that?"

I shook my head.

"Can stretch it our for an inordinate length of time, sliver a man to ribbons. Very nasty."

"I'm sure," I said.

"You are a soldier?" he said, very sure of himself.

"Maryland militia," I said, seeing no reason that he should have me beaten to find out.

"Ah, yes, well. We're going to spend the night here. House is vacant now. Just have to get these horses branded, and we'll be off in the morning. Decide about you then, eh." He smiled, turned on his heel and stalked off.

A few minutes later I saw branding irons going into the cookfire. I watched with interest as they branded the horses, perhaps eight or ten, and then let the squealing animals gallop back into their enclosure. The men had found something to drink by then, apple brandy from the smell of it, and when they were finished with the horses, it was my turn. One of the Hessians came and tore my shirt open and then ripped away my breeches, popping buttons left and right. He smiled as he cut what was left of them from my knees and then poked me with his short knife. My blood chilled as he looked at my shrunken member.

"Grab 'im," yelled the sergeant as he turned the iron in the fire and then examined its white-hot end. Two German held my arms and the big-bellied man approached. He spat on the iron and it flashed and smoked.

"Where'd y'like it now, y'bloody rebel?" he asked, brandishing the glowing iron in my face. "On the cheek, perhaps, like the deserters, on yer belly." He held the thing close enough to my navel to fry off some of my hair.

The men holding me laughed as I squirmed.

"Naw," said the sergeant. "We'll do ye like the horses." And he pressed the glowing iron into my left buttock and held it there.

I screamed, heard my skin sizzling and caught the smell of burning flesh.

The sergeant pulled the iron away and examined his work. "There," he said, proudly. "A foine gee an' arr, nice as you pleases."

The men left me hanging at the post and went back toward the house. I tried to ignore the pain and failed. It was a long day, and I had to keep twitching to drive off the flies as the sun set.

It was very late that night, actually the next morning when I heard footsteps and then felt a hand on my chest, a woman's hand. It slid across my belly and held my dangling prod. "He's awake," the woman whispered as I trembled.

"By damn," said Lt. Foster. "You can find woman 'most everywhere you go, can't ya?" He cut me loose, and I fell to my knees.

"Are you hurt?" the girl asked, tousling my hair.

"Burned, branded," I said. "On the ass."

"How many's in there?" my lieutenant asked, ignoring my complaint.

"Small squad," I said. "Maybe a dozen. Doubt I ever saw all a'them"

"Any locals?"

"Think they killed 'em," I said.

"We got one guard out on the road. This woman fetched us. She described you right down to the size a'your member. Good thing you're so damned ugly."

"Now what?" I asked, searching in the straw for my belt and bayonet.

"Be dawn soon," Foster said. "We'll fire the place and shoot 'em as they come out."

Sore and aching, I buckled on my bayonet, found my musket and powder horn, loaded my weapons and took my place, my rear pulsing and aching. The girl had vanished again by the time one of the Brits came stretching and yawning out the back door and headed for the privy. He was a good-sized man so I said, "I'll do him. I need his breeches."

My lieutenant nodded and I went to wait for the man to do his business. When he came out, buttoning his waistband, I smashed him down with the butt of my gun and hauled him to the barn. I threw aside his boots, yanked off his britches and started to get into them. He had fouled them so I drew them off again and threw them atop the body of the man whose skull I had crushed. I could kill them bare-assed I supposed.

We got fires going at both front and back doors, circled the house with our guns and waited. It did not take long, and we had a fine morning killing Germans and Redcoats as they tried to escape, eyes streaming lungs filled with smoke, waving with their hands up as we shot them down. With the house fully aflame, we checked the bodies and stripped the dead. I found the young lieutenant still alive, gut shot and probably doomed, but alive. I dragged him to the barn by the back of his collar. He was dressed as I was, wearing only a shirt, so I did not find a purse. I showed him my gaudy brand while he begged for mercy. I had no idea what I was going to do to him, but Lt. Foster arrived, glanced at the man and shot him in the forehead.

"Hate to see an animal suffer," he said.

The woman I had been happily swiving reappeared, found some salt in the barn, got some water from the well and bathed my brand. It stung like fire, but I'm sure it helped.

"We kin go up in the loft," she whispered. "Finish what we started."

"You willing to do my friends, the rest a'this bunch?"

She shook her head.

"Better leave then," I said. "Thank you for everything."

She kissed me and vanished.

Foster looked at my rear end as we were getting ready to leave, herding the newly branded horses along. "Don't look too bad," he said. "Can you ride?"

"Rather do that than walk," I told him, throwing an old blanket over the saddle and swinging my leg across, but I regretted that rash statement a mile or so down the road. I dismounted, waved my friends to go on and stiffly walked to a nearby stream. I waded out to where it was knee deep and squatted. It felt wonderful. I could have stayed there all day.

"What 'chu doing?" asked a female voice. She was back.

"Cooling my tail?" I told her as she came to sit on the bank and wrap her arms around her knees.

I splashed ashore and sat on the moss beside her. She looked down at my backside and grinned at me.

"Damn," she said. "That's gonna cause some talk."

"Who's goin' to see it?"

"Some might," she said.

"You still got an itch?" I said.

"We barely got started back yonder," she said.

She lay back in the weeds, raised her arms and knees and welcomed me eagerly. I ignored the steady pain in my buttock. She wrapped me in carefully, and we rolled and rogered until we were both well satisfied.

"Damn," she said, when we drew apart, "you sure are a big one."

"I'd be a sight better, if I din't hurt so much," I told her, doubting it when I said it.

"Hate to git you riled when you're well," she said with a giggle.

"Was them your folks back there?" I asked.

"No," she said, "but good people. I'm 'dentured."

"Reckon your paper's burned up."

She nodded. "What'll I do?"

"Find yourself a man; start a whole new life. You're free, I suppose."

"How 'bout you?" she said, poking me in the ribs.

"Not me. Ain't marrying nobody. I ain't good for nothing."

"Cept killin' and swivin'," she said. "You 'bout ready?"

We were petting and kissing, hoping to join our bodies again when we heard the clatter of hooves on the nearby road and rolled over to peek through the weeds.

"More lobsters," she said.

I hoped the Redcoats would not see us or my horse who was still drinking and grazing at the creek bank.

"They going to find all them bodies," she said as the column clattered off toward the scene of this morning's action.

"We better get going," she said. I agreed, and we tried riding tandem for a while. Then I dismounted after being constantly excited by the girl's rump in my groin and pained by my branding scars. I walked and she rode until we found a tavern. Since I had a few coins from the morning's killing in my shirt pocket, I could afford a pair of good meals and a bed, wrapped in the blanket like I was some sort of Scot. The girl bathed my brand again and rubbed some sort of grease on it. Then we got in bed and enjoyed each other until we slept.

In the morning, after I horsed her again until she whooped with pleasure, I tied the ratty blanket about my waist, and we went down to eat, getting a few raised eyebrows as we did. I could not figure out if it was my costume or the noises we had made earlier that brought the strange looks. We finished and we about to leave when the British arrived. I'm pretty sure it was the same group we had seen heading the other way. An ensign and a sergeant came in, looked around and spoke to the inn-keeper. Then they came to our table.

"Stand up," the young officer said to me after nodding at the girl.

I stood, weaponless since I had left even my belt and bayonet upstairs, planning on getting some more girl after we ate.

"Why the blanket?" the ensign asked as his sergeant stood smiling behind him.

"Britches wore out," I said.

"Really?" he said, poking at my covering with his crop. The blanket slid to the floor, and the young man said, "My word."

I grabbed him by the wrist, spun him around, shoved his arm up the middle of his back and rammed him head first into the big sergeant. The officer's head hit the man in the mouth and drove him back over a table. I threw the officer aside and yanked out the non-com's big pistol and hit him in the side of the head with it. He fell, poleaxed and out cold.

I shoved the pistol into the ensign's face. "Get up," I told him and he scrambled to his feet, holding his injured arm. "Tell 'em to go on back to camp. Say you and the sergeant will be along shortly."

He nodded, and I walked with him to the tavern door. He stepped out into the bright sunlight. "Corporal," he yelled in a squeaky voice. "Take the men back to camp. Sarn't Summers and I'll be along soon."

"Sah," cried the corporal and the group spurred off, only four of them I noticed. I had thought it was a larger group when they passed us at the stream.

I led the young officer back to the table and had him sit. I handed the girl the cocked pistol and told her to watch him. I threw what was left in my beer glass on the sergeant, roused him and led him out the back door.

"Give me your britches," I demanded, and he sat, pulled off his boots, got out of them and handed them to me. My mind said kill him, but he was a man about my age who had done me no harm so I tied him up and left him in an empty stall with a gag in his mouth. His breeches fit me reasonably well if I did not buckle the knees.

I went back in the tavern, collected the young officer, took him outside, frightened him until he pissed himself and then tied him up, gagged him and put him in a different stall. I took his pistol, sword and adequate purse as my reward for sparing two lives.

The girl followed me back up the stairs and sat on the bed. "Now what?" she asked.

"We ain't got time to play, sorry," I said.

"Why?" she pouted.

"Too many Brits around. Damn," I said. "Too late. Bet that sergeant's name ain't Summers." We heard the door slam, loud voices and then boots on the stairs. I stepped out with my pistol in one hand and the officer's in the other and blew the first man away with a shot right in his face. He tumbled back and knocked down the man behind him. I went down two steps and shot the fallen man in the chest and then ran back to the room and locked the door. I reloaded my pistols, checked my musket, and a shot came smashing through the door between me and the girl. She squealed and I went to the window. The stable sweepings, straw and manure sat in a huge pile beneath our window, only five or six feet down.

Another shot blasted through the door, and I quickly pushed the bed over to block it closed. "Go on and jump," I urged the girl. She looked, got her feet swung outside and dropped. I fired my musket through the door at an unseen foe and quickly reloaded. I threw on my belt, tossed both pistols down to the waiting girl and jumped with my musket in my hands. The manure pile was soft and yielding, and I rolled off with no damage done.

Out of the barn came the young officer, the big sergeant and another soldier. I knelt and shot the armed man, and then stood, took one of the pistols from the girl and killed the sergeant at about ten paces. Someone fired from the window above, from the room we had been in, and the ball whizzed by my ear. The girl handed me the other pistol, and I held it out with both hands and fired at the man whose smoking musket showed he had not started to reload. I heard him cry out and his weapon fell into the manure. I counted in my head, two on the stairs, one over there, one above and the sergeant. The sprawled ensign made six.

"Must go," I told the girl. "You were wonderful." I gave her my purse and kept the officer's. I offered her a pistol but she refused. She stretched up and kissed me and then disappeared as quickly as she had before. I got the ensign up, retied his hands behind him, roped the horses together and rode back toward camp with two pistols, five muskets, five pairs of boots and a half dozen horses. If I had made it, I would have been hailed a hero and given a party, but unfortunately fate and a squad of grenadiers intervened. I raised my hands and surrendered very quietly to the red-clad ruffians who smiled as they took my hard-won money and my weapons. The young ensign beat me around the head and shoulders with a riding crop until the other officer made him stop.