Chapter 99: Fraulein

One ambush that Lt. Foster, George and I staged produced a real treasure, a treasure we were not allowed to keep, but one we surely enjoyed. We fell on a small company of Hessian jaegers on a woodland trail and decimated them in rapid order. We did more than that, we slaughtered them, to the last man. And we enjoyed every minute of the bloody work. I'm not sure who the last man was, but it may have been the tall young horseman I shot in the face while he was trying to surrender. Then Foster yanked open the door of the carriage they had been escorting and out stepped three handsome women, dressed in finery and looking very unhappy, weeping with fear, holding each other.

With the help of my boyhood, Fredericktown German, we figured out that they were a step-mother who was a German general's wife, perhaps his third although I was not sure what she said about that, and two daughters, Katrina and May-something. If the mother was older than the daughters, it was not by much. She, the step-mother, was the smallest of the lot as well as the hautiest, and Foster took it upon himself to tame her.

George annexed plump Katrina with her golden curls as a potential bed partner, and I found myself with May, the youngest and most frightened of the three, probably sixteen or seventeen, ripe for plucking we called them at that age. I suppose we hoped that the young ladies would be compliant enough to swive the whole company once we had given them a taste of good, old American abilities and manners.

We stripped the dead, I took the reins, George rode ahead and Foster clambered into the carriage with the women. In less than a half an hour, Katrina was astride my horse and riding up beside George, chattering like a magpie, and May was sitting silently at my side. The carriage was rocking to and fro with whatever Foster and his lady were doing inside. Judging from the whoops and cries, they were doing very well.

"My vater's hure," May said quietly, her first words to me. She smiled as the woman screeched again and the rig bounced on its heavy springs.

Foster eventually dismounted from his well-pleased lady, took my horse and he and George rode off, leaving me to get the three women to our camp. "I'll send out some men to escort you, if I remember," he said, as he waved and galloped off.

May looked at me oddly while her sister climbed back in the carriage and we started again in relative silence.

"How far ist?" the girl beside me asked.

"Two, zwei, hours," I said, holding up two fingers. She nodded. "Stunde," I said, finally dredging up what I hoped was the word for hour.

It was the last thing she said to me until we reached our tents about sunset. Then the three women clambered down and stood together. Foster came and offered the slight step-mother his arm. She smiled up at him and they walked off together, toward the officer's mess tent. George arrived to claim the bulbous and giggling Katrina, and May and I were left together after I hauled down their women's trunks and valises. She looked uneasy, worried.

"Now vat?" the girl asked. I looked past her and saw a few of our loungers watching us, hoping to make a move and pick up the pieces if I failed to persuade this fair lass to share my bedroll.

"We eat," I said, making chewing motions for her. "Essen."

"Goot," she said and took my arm.

We ate, poorly as usual, and I found that George and Katrina were busily occupying our tent. "Himmel" was all May said as we passed her sister's kicking feet. I walked the girl off to look at the river, and we watched the clouds turn from red to purple.

"Do you want to bundle with me?" I asked as darkness quickly spread.

"Must I?" she whispered, standing and bushing the back of her dress.

"No, of course not," I assured her, taking her arm. "But we might enjoy it."

"You might. That's what you mean. Freude for you, ja. But for me, what?"

I did not answer.

"I don't like it," she said clearly. She sniffed. "I haf done it. I had a, what do you say, luffer, Liebes."

"Lover," I said.

She nodded and smiled up at me.

After a bit of checking, I found that the women had been billeted in what had been the quartermaster's tent. He had disappeared a week or so previously along with most of the hard money in his care.

I bid May good night, pulled my bedroll from the tent where George was still plowing his hilly and willing field, and slept with the horses. The very next day the higher ups decided that we must return the women to the enemy's camp. Evidently the step-mother had been very persuasive with someone in some manner. The women packed up what had been hastily unpacked, Foster bid his conquest adeiu, George kissed Katrina thoroughly, and I was given the job of driving the rig under a flag of true and trailing my horse.

We were barely out of sight of our camp when a band of rough looking men blocked the road, ragtailed local militia or horse thieves I decided. Since I was unarmed and I saw a dozen or so of them, I just raised my hands.

"Where y'headed?" their beared leader asked. He was the only one mounted.

"Down river," I said, "to the Hessians at --" whatever town it was.

He nodded. "Git down," he ordered. He yanked open the carriage door and yelled, "Get th'shit out here."

The women followed each other out very meekly and stood by the back wheel. I was at the front, my hands still raised.

"Jimmy by damn," the man said. "Three prime pieces, lookee here." He dismounted and went down the row of young women, pulling off their necklaces one by one and sticking the jewelry in his pocket. "Lordy," he said, looking back at his men who shuffled closer, most armed with fowling pieces. "Ain't we gonna have fun."

"These ladies are officers' wives," I said. "I'm taking them down to their husbands. There's a German patrol coming up to meet us."

"Y'don' say," said the bearded one. "Y'hear that, boys, our foreign fren's is coming this way." Then he turned to me, spitting out the words, "We's loyal hereabouts, bucko, y'rebelous turd. Ain't no rebs in my bunch. Women's all the same, though, ain' they, fair game, jus' meat. If we uses 'em, who cares, long as they gets back to their men?" He punched me low in the stomach, and I collapsed to my knees. He hit me on the back of my head, probably with his pistol, and then kicked me when I fell to the dirt.

When I awoke, I was lying by the front wheel of the carriage. The horses were gone, all of them including mine, and I had bruised ribs and a very sore head with a big, bleeding lump on back, just above my queue. I still had my bayonet and the sun was not very high in the east so I guessed I had lain there perhaps an hour or so.

Their trail was relatively easy to follow since there were so many of them. In half an hour, I had spotted the smoke of a camp fire and ten minutes later I was watching them repeatedly rape the three women. They had tied them to trees, torn off most of their clothes, and were taking them from the back, either standing or on their knees, the man's choice obviously. At first the women probably screamed and twisted under attack, but as time passed they became almost silent, grunting now and then or crying out a plea, but obviously past the point of resisting what they had to tolerate. The men were laughing and drinking. Even if I had a gun with me, there was little I could do except wait for dark.

After a while, the Tories paused to eat and then some of them napped while several others went back to their sport, dragging the women up from their stooped positions. May was turned about and had her hands tied back behind the tree, thrusting out her full breasts. They forced her to her knees and had her perform fellatio on several men. At one point the girls' step-mother screamed and fainted, hanging limply from her bound hands, the tree between her legs. The bearded man kicked her rump until she stirred and buggered her until she screamed.

Drink and sex led several of the militiamen to early beds, but at sunset there were still four or five deviling the women and demanding various forms of service from them. Katrina, the soft blonde, had also been turned about by then and her pendulous breasts now showed signs of bite marks and scratches. A trickle of blood ran down the inside of her white thighs as a man roughly pulled her to her feet, held her at the throat, forced her legs apart and took her again, grunting with effort as his hips and rump throbbed again and again at her. She closed her eyes, bit her lip and trembled until he finished. He did not take long, perhaps a minute or two. Then she sank again to her knees, weeping quietly.