Chapter 24: Nameless

On one early winter trip back to camp after an invigorating evening in Ginny's arms and legs, I ran into an odd situation. I heard a couple of gunshots in the distance and then discovered an expensive chaise standing at the side of the narrow road, and in it I found a very dead British lieutenant of infantry. He had been shot twice, evidently at close range. Powder burns showed around his wounds. The only other thing in the small carriage was a lady's reticule or purse. The man's pockets had been turned out, and if he had been carrying a sword, it was missing. The road was too well traveled for following any trail, and I was about to unhitch the patient horse so it could graze when a scream drew my attention to the hillside woods.

I grabbed my musket and started up the hill toward the faint sounds of struggle; slaps, outcries and curses. In a forest clearing, I found a man and a woman wrestling on the ground, rolling over and over in fact, while two Hessian jaegers watched the spectacle puffing on pipes. The woman had evidently been wearing a fancy sacque dress but was now in petticoat and stays while the young man fought her in shirtsleeves with the foreflap of his britches open and his eager member flapping about. His purpose was obvious, but the two men watching were laughing at his difficulties in accomplishing his goal. I was only five or six feet behind the two spectators when one called out a clear offer of help and the other laughed. The would-be rapist, holding the struggling woman by her wrist, looked toward them, cursed vilely and then saw me and pointed.

The Hessians turned, raising their weapons, and I bayoneted the one on the left and smashed in the face of the other with the butt of my musket. I finished him with two quick jabs while he stood with his hands to his shattered mouth and then walked toward the struggling pair with my musket dripping gore. The young man now had his arm around the woman's throat and was backing toward his jacket and weapon when she elbowed him in the gut and then turned, grabbed him at the shoulders and kneed him in the groin. He fell to his hands and knees, moaning, and she kicked at him until I grabbed her arm. She was crying and spitting, mad as she could be, trembling with rage. I handed her my horse pistol, helped her cock it, and she held it with both hands, poked it in the German's ear and pulled the trigger as he looked up at her in horror. His head disappeared in a cloud of smoke, blood, bone and brains.

She dropped the gun, spat on the almost-headless body and then turned to fall into my arms, unconscious. I poured some water on her face and then went to turn out the dead men's pockets and gather up their weapons, including a fine, British cavalry sword. None of them had boots or purses worth taking. By then the woman was sitting up and looking about, her ripped-away dress in her hands. She had a tangle of long, dark hair flowing over her shoulders and a bruise on her cheek, but otherwise seemed unharmed. Her dress, however, was ruined, a torn pile of expensive rags. She held it up to show me.

"Who are you?" she said, after clearing her throat a couple of times and spitting.

I told her I was an American soldier, a Continental.

"These were beasts, animals," she said, gesturing at the bodies. "They killed John for no reason and let that boy, that bastard, have at me for sport."

"He won't hurt anybody else," I said as I helped her to her feet and handed her the coat of the man she had killed. She struggled into it, covering a fine pair of breasts pushed up by her tightly laced whalebone corset.

"Now what?" she asked, putting a shaking hand on my arm and taking a deep breath.

"Where are you staying?"

"Near New Brunswick, with some people, like poor John, friends of my husband, loyal people." She had trouble getting words out, shivering.

"I can't go there," I told her as we walked back toward the carriage and the dead man.

"Well, I certainly can't drive that chaise with a bloody body in it."

"I could toss him out."

"Oh, no," she said, looking disgusted. "He was a good man."

"He's just another dead Redcoat now. I've seen a lot of those."

"How cruel, but you'll help me."

"As best I can," I said, making an almost fatal mistake.

I had left my horse tied to a carriage wheel, and I helped her mount him with the back of her fancy petticoat pulled up between her legs. She smiled down at me and took the reins.

"Be gentle," I said. "Don't yank at him."

"I know how to ride," she said, tossing her loose hair back. "Just follow me."

I covered her friend John with a blanket and clucked to the horse. We bent right at the first turning about sundown and a mile or so farther, she trotted into a farm lane that led between a double row of bare-limbed trees. She dismounted in a quick flutter of white shift, pink legs, ribbed stockings and blue petticoat while I set the brake and dropped the reins.

"Thank you, rebel," she said, standing on tip toe, putting her hands behind my neck and kissing me. I gathered her in and kissed her back, and while I was enjoying that saw a British grenadier step from behind one of the big trees with a smile on his face and a musket pointed at my gut.