Chapter 26: Melissa

Staging ambushes became our specialty. Since most agreed that I had the best Pennsylvania rifle in the company, I was often the bait in our trap. Once we had spied a small camp of the enemy pickets or a foraging party at work, my job would be to step out in the open, fire at them a time or two, aiming for the officers of course, and then run for it once they got moving toward me. If we worked it right, we could bag up to a dozen men and horses that way, replenish our supplies and send a couple of men with the survivors, if any, back to Morristown for congratulations and a long overdue rogering. I must admit that we took only a few prisoners that winter and generally dispatched the wounded as an act of mercy. They surely would have frozen before any help could have reached them.

There was a single incident that should not go without mention since it provided me with a week of warm and spirited days in the midst of so much emptiness, loneliness and desolation. We were breakfasting on grog and hoe cakes one morning at a small wayfarer's inn near Princeton when the door crashed open and a dragoon officer appeared, his fancy cape turned back to show its silken lining. He stood in the doorway for a moment, sniffing the air and showing his displeasure. Then he stomped across the floor in his spurred boots and demanded service. Two rather shabby civilians in worn coats and floppy hats followed him in, trying not to catch anyone's eyes. I glanced through the front window to see a fancy carriage and a puffing pair of chestnut horses on the far side of the road. I could not tell if anyone else was in the light rig.

The lieutenant ordered his food and drink, said something like "take care of these two," dropped a few coins on the counter, and looked around the room. He obviously did not like what he saw and was spoiling for a fight.

"Nest of filthy rebels, wot?" he said to no one in particular. The four of us occupied the table nearest the fire, and he came and stood at the end of the trestle. "Move on," said to us, kicking one of the benches. "Make room for your betters."

I put my hand on George's arm, nodded quietly at the other two, and stood to face him. He was almost six feet tall, went perhaps twelve stone, and appeared fit and healthy. He sneered up at me and put his hand on the hilt of his sword, issuing an obvious dare. His eyes were very blue, his gaze steady.

"We're not quite finished," I said evenly.

"You are now," he announced and brushed my trencher and half-filled cup to the floor, splashing rum across my legs. I looked over his shoulder, and the two who had come in with him were chatting up the tavern wench and studiously ignoring our little tableau. He was quite alone.

"Set that here," I said to the inn keeper who had come from the kitchen with a platter of food. "We'll eat it. This fancy-dressed shitface has decided he ain't hungry."

The young officer's eyes widened, and he stepped back a pace and drew his sword with a metallic hiss. "Bloody fool," he growled

I brushed his arm aside with my elbow and drew my big bayonet while I crushed his bent wrist and attempted to unscrew his forearm. I heard the sword clatter to the floor as I pulled him toward me and pushed the tip of my blade under his sternum. He jumped and I smiled at him. "Want to die for your king?" I asked him, feeling the blade tip puncture his skin. He shook his head, wide-eyed, wincing with pain. I stepped up and kneed him in the groin as I withdrew and sheathed my blood-stained blade. He fell to the floor and curled over his knees like a Mussleman at prayer. He was weeping like a child.

"Who's in the carriage?" I asked one of the men at the bar.

"We's just drivers," he said. I waited.

"A fancy woman," he said, "officer's bitch, young 'un, smells good. That one's his lordship's bleeding aide or some such." He nodded toward the retching figure on the floor. George had been happily going through the young man's pockets and sharing out what he found, dumping his leather purse out on the table. He failed to save any coins for me, and I declined the watch he offered.

"You et?" I asked the pair. "Ready to go?"

The driver looked at his companion, stuffing bread in his grimy pocket. They both nodded.

"Where you headed?"

"Old Swanson place, just up the road, couple a'miles."

"I know it," I said. "Wait a moment." I went back and told George where I was going and suggested he finish our scouting tasks while the other two men took the young officer back to General Washington for a visit. "We'll meet back here in a week," I told them. "Come on to the big stone house by the mill if I'm not here. I'll be there to greet you."

I pulled the moaning lieutenant up by his ear and tore open his shirt. Blood trickled down his body from an inch-wide wound, but he was not badly hurt. "You are now a prisoner," I told him, shaking his head back and forth. "I expect you to behave yourself. You'll be riding my horse. Don't use your spurs on her. Go along." The four of them left, and I joined the drivers at the door and went to meet the 'officer's bitch' in the waiting carriage.

Melissa R-- proved to be a most welcome surprise, and, as I recall, she did smell very good. I had expected some sort of painted harridan or weary camp-follower and found a milky young woman with a ready smile, strong body and good wit as well as a gracious heart. I introduced myself, told her that the lieutenant was on his way to Morristown for an extended visit, sat beside her and asked her name as the carriage rocked into motion.

"Oh, the colonel will be most displeased," she said happily, stifling a laugh. "He dotes on that young Harry, 'e does, pays him much more attention than 'e does me. I'm just an ornament, a poor lackey. 'Arry was his true love."

"Really? You mean?"

"Oh indeed," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Most discreet, of course, but they were surely lovers."

"How did you get mixed up in this?" I asked as we jounced along. She was wearing a tight-fitting, very stylish sacque dress of pale silk and an open riding cloak that provided a fine view of her swelling breasts above the flat, low-cut, brocaded and ornamented stomacher. A red jewel on a thin, gold chain bounced between her glowing pair of pale orbs. Her body was slim and rigid, obviously encased in whalebone. Our hips and thighs rubbed together as the carriage moved along at a good pace, and she did not seem to mind the familiarity.

"My 'ome was in New York, in the city, when the Redcoats arrived. I'd only been in America for about six months. We had a small business, furs, and the colonel made a, what shall I say, an arrangement with my master, paid 'im some gold, bought my paper. I was indentured. I suppose I still am although he treats me like a slave."

"Who is this colonel?" I asked.

"He's high up on Lord Cornwallis's staff." She looked out the window rather than at me. "Morton's 'is name, 'as charge of this area, I think, as far as patrols and relations with the Tories. He 'as a title, even, and a wife back home, in Essex somewheres."

"Well," I said, with my hand on her velvet-covered thigh, "won't he be surprised." I reached out and took her hand. "How far is it?" I asked, stroking her long fingers, feeling the pulse in her wrist and wondering if I could mount her where she sat. I tried to recall if I had ever done it in a moving carriage.

"We're almost there," she said, smiling and pulling her hand away. She buttoned her cape and pulled up her hood as the carriage turned into a graveled driveway.

The colonel was sitting before a small fire in the library of the old, thick-walled house, cleaning a pair of fine pistols. He rose as Melissa entered the room in a flutter of petticoats. "Where's Harry?" he asked, and then he saw me.