Chapter 67: Pris & Nan

Some time in that period, we ambushed a raiding party that had taken some civilian prisoners or perhaps hostages; I'm not sure I know the difference now. There was an officer on a bay horse, eight or ten redcoated soldiers with tall-fronted hats on foot and perhaps a dozen adults and three or four children walking along with them, hands tied behind them. We counted only three men, all white haired. It made for a problem since we surely did not want to hit the citizen-prisoners in our first volley from concealment, our normal starting point, very useful in evening the odds. There were four of us, plus the lieutenant with his double-barreled pistol and straight sword.

Lt. Foster nudged me. "Knock that bastard off his damn horse," he said. I set aside my musket, leveled my good rifle against a stone wall and hit the officer at about seventy yards, give or take. He threw his arms up in the air and went back over the horse's tail into the ditch.

The soldiers quickly scattered left and right, some men dragging two or three people with them, people who were obviously tied together somehow. They all crouched down except for the children who looked about curiously until their mothers pulled them to the ground.

Foster waved us to circle them, but we could see as we moved that some of the redcoats were retreating into the woods, often in pairs, dragging their prisoners along in some case and abandoning them in others. One fusilier almost ran into me, wide-eyed and puffing. I knocked him down with the butt of my musket and bayoneted him. An elderly man, younger woman and two children stood and watched him scream and writhe. I cut them free and they vanished almost like magic, wordlessly.

After that the affray became scattered, and I could not find another target until I saw, at some distance, a pair of Redcoats hurrying away, dragging two women and a boy between them. I followed them, losing sight of them from time to time in the dense undergrowth, until I came to a shack in a small clearing, a one-time farm I suppose where second growth was reclaiming the land. Noises came from the cabin.

I set aside my rifle, unlimbered my musket, fixed on my bayonet and was about to make a move when the girl inside screamed. "No," she cried, "please, no, no" and then a screech. Assuming the men were busily employed, I ran to the flimsy door, kicked it in, and found an astonished soldier in the process of undoing his foreflap. I shot him where he stood, blowing a hole clear through him with my load of buck and ball. He tumbled into the corner away from the only other person in the house.

The young girl lay on the floor of the cabin, dress torn open, skirt and pinafore up at her hips. She stood uneasily, adjusted her clothes, eyes wide, and then looked at the twisted body. She nodded. "Thank you," she gasped, glancing up at me as I automatically reloaded. "They got my sister. We were tied together, but he split us up. There's a boy too. Gone."

"They've scattered, all over the place," I said as I bent to relieve the dead man of his thin purse and other valuables.

"He was goin' to poke me," the girl said. She could not have been much more than twelve or thirteen, still mostly a child, short and pudgy.

I nodded, handed her a cartridge box which she slung over her shoulder. We left the crude cabin and headed back for the scene of the ambush, hoping Foster's company would reassemble as we had been taught to do. Only two of his men were there along with several civilians. The girl asked about her sister, and one of the children pointed. "She and Bucko was still tied together when I saw 'em," the boy said. "The man was draggin' 'em off toward the crick."

I handed George my good rifle to take care of, and the girl followed me in the direction the child had pointed. "How far's the creek?" I asked.

"Mile, maybe," she said, tramping along behind me with the cartridge box bouncing on her lean hip.

"Who's Bucko?"

"That boy's brother. They're cousins a'ours."

"How old?"

"My size; he's maybe twelve."

We moved on through the woods, looking for signs of recent passage, and then we found the body. It looked very small.

"It's Bucko," the girl said, kneeling. I saw another trace of blood nearby and a trail of it leading away, but I did not point that out to her.

I looked at her closely for the first time and saw a pretty, freckle-faced youngster weeping, wiping her nose on her hand, her lank hair hanging loosely, shoulders slumped.

The boy's throat had been cut and there was still a rope about one wrist. We hurried on, eager to save the girl's sister if we could. I knew better, but I stopped worrying about the noise we were making and simply crashed through the limbs brushing them aside with the girl right behind me, ducking her head and puffing hard.

The shot surprised me and nearly ended my brilliant military career. If I had not tripped an instant before over a root, that ball would like have likely hit me in the head or chest instead of blasting into the tree beside me. I fell to the ground, rolled over and looked for the girl. She was standing beside the tree that had been hit, in plain sight, frozen. And here he came, spike bayonet thrusting ahead of him. I rose to my knees and shot him down within three steps of the girl.

The young girl's sister lay on the creek bank, face down, back shaking, her skirt blood stained. The girl called Pris comforted her while I loaded both muskets and scanned the area. Now I had two young girls, this one evidently freshly raped and nubile enough to attract my attention, especially after a killing fight. I pulled off my neckcloth, soaked it in the creek and took it to the girl. "Wash her off," I said. "Might make her feel better." I turned my back as she lifted her sister's torn skirt and the girl moaned.

Night was coming on, and I was reasonably sure I could find the way back to the ambush point, but I doubted that we would discover anyone there. I dug some scraps of food from my haversack and the dead soldier's pack and shared them with the girls. Nan was still sobbing quietly, a trail of drying blood on one leg. while Pris, her younger sister, looked calm and determined. It was a bit odd to the see younger girl lend comfort to the older.

"We better get going," I said, and the injured girl got her feet, a bit unsteady, eyes wary as if she did not trust me, or perhaps any man. I handed her the extra musket to carry. We skirted the body of the dead redcoat, trudged uphill for a mile or so and finally were back we had started, in an empty clearing near a rural road that was barely two tracks through the wilderness.

"How far's your camp?" Pris asked.

"Three or four miles," I said, looking around to see if they had left my horse behind.

"Don't think Nan can walk that far. She says she hurts, inside,"

I nodded, handed her my weapon, slung the other over my back and then picked up her sister. She did not weigh much. We set off. Either my sense of distance or of direction were way off because several hours later, when I was sure the camp was just around the next bend, I set the girl down again and admitted that we were lost. For the last mile or so I had been carrying her on my back and my musket in my hands to give my spine a break.

"We best sleep," I said, "start again when the sun comes up."

"I'm hungry," Nan said quietly.

I made us a nest in the leaves, showed them how to get together spoon fashion and then tucked myself in behind the older girl who was holding her sister and whispering to her. Somehow we slept.