Chapter 89: The Tavern

I think this bloody tale, as well as several others, is out of place, but it's on top of the pile, so here it is.

Men who operated ferries or manned the gates at well-established fords or tollroads were good sources of information, and in my work I cultivated their friendship and rewarded their cooperation as best I could. One of them, a German named Claus Schmidt, had not only a large ferry that could carry a stage and its team but a sound ford during low water and a very successful tavern and way station where the stage line kept teams of horses. Schmidt was doing very well and his girth and smile showed it.

He also kept three or four young whores as serving wenches or perhaps he had turned his tavern girls into trollops; I never inquired. All were strong and willing, and the big German hired them out and took their pay, sharing meagerly with the girls I was sure. A flaxen-haired youngster who had done her best to wring me dry, told me that she made only one and six for each man she bedded while I told her Schmidt was charging a crown for her services. She looked very unhappy and sniffed her pert nose.

I had almost decided to have a talk with the man about the way he treated his girls since he had been very willing to take my money for his information about British and Hessian movements, but the whole thing came apart. I was pulling up my breeches when the door blasted open and a young fusilier officer followed by an eager Redcoat stepped into the small room. The soldier grinned at the half-dressed girl and the officer poked a large pistol in my face and announced that I was his prisoner. I kicked my heavy belt and bayonet under the bed, finished dressing and went downstairs with him. The soldier and the young blonde who had just slaked my body's needs stayed behind, and I heard her squawk as we reached the tavern floor.

And there stood my friend, Herr Schmidt, all smiles, nodding to the officer and saying, "Zee, I toldt you."

The fusilier had me taken to a back room and tied to a chair. Then he questioned me about my work, my friends and my company. I claimed ignorance, and it did not please him. He began beating me with his quirt and heavy gloves, slashing at my face until my lips were spilt, nose broken again and left eye cut and swollen, nearly closed. Tired or disgusted, or both, or told the soldier with him to call in his other men. Then he hit me again with his riding crop, squarely in the ear, spat on me and left, taking the lamp and slamming the door.

Soon I heard carousing in the tavern and then the clomp of heavy boots on the stairs. Evidently, the officer was providing his men with some recreation. I wondered if he was paying.

I struggled with my bonds and succeeded only in tipping over my chair and smashing my shoulder and knee into the floor. I heard the door open, pale light appeared and then it was dark again.

"Where are you?" asked a woman's voice. I could hear her shuffling feet in the dark room.

"On the floor," I hissed, "near the back wall."

I felt her toe poke my ribs, and she said, "Oh." She knelt, cut the ropes and put the handle of my big bayonet in my hand. "They're raping us, all of us, over n'over," she whispered, "taking turns on Jean right now, the poor girl. Mine passed out, the one you saw upstairs came back for a second try. He had a bottle with him, brandy."

"Where's Schmidt?" I asked.

"Out there, arguing with that officer. He wants to be paid."

"Ha," I said. "I'll pay him." I got to my feet with her help, woozy and unsteady. I cracked the door an inch and peered out. With my blurred vision, I could see very little. My left eye was now closed completely, but I could hear them debating and cursing each other.

"Save her, please," the girl behind me begged as someone above screamed again. "There was three of them at 'er, takin' turns, often two at a time."

I opened the door all the way, and more light helped me see better. I crossed the room in three long steps, skewered the young officer where he stood, ignoring Schmidt's, "Mine Gott!" as my blade popped out of the subaltern's chest. I took the dead man's pistol and ran to the stairs. A Redcoat was coming down, buttoning his waist. I stabbed him low in the belly and tossed him over my shoulder. He crashed to the foot of the steps as I reached the second floor. There was a lot of noise, girls screaming, men roaring, furniture crashing about.

I went right down the hall, room by room. In the first a shirtsleeved man was enjoying a woman on the narrow bed while another soldier was yanking on his boots. I stuffed the pistol in the back of my belt, slashed at the sitting man's throat and then pulled the other soldier off his sobbing victim, spun him about and drove my big blade through the middle of his chest. I pushed him out the open window, glanced at the gore-covered man with one boot on and saw his throat gaping open so I went to the next room as blood slowly covered the floor.

There one Redcoat was holding a pleading girl's arms from the far side of the bed while his companion was buggering her with his back to me. I pulled up the rapist's head and cut his throat left to right, spraying the girl with blood while the other soldier scrambled for his musket. I got to it first, kicked it aside, ignored his raised hands and pleas for mercy and cut him open from belly to breastbone. He fell on the bed screaming, his guts pouring out in his hands. The girl, covered with blood, lay on the bed, blubbering, kicking her feet in the intestines.

I stepped back in the hall with my bloodly blade in my fist and faced a soldier just raising his musket and pulling back the hammer. I fell to the floor, pulled the officer's pistol and shot him in the body, thankful the man had primed the heavy thing. I threw the gun aside, picked up my knife, stepped over the writhing soldier I'd shot in the stomach, kicked open the last door and found Jean, tied to the end of her bed, head slumped toward the mattress, hanging by her arms, obviously unconscious. A Redcoat was busily humping her from the rear, holding her hips, his teeth clenched, neck corded with effort as he bent over her, thrusting to and fro.

"Think she's dead," he said without looking up at me. I pulled him off the women and dragged him kicking and yelling to the top of the stairs, poking him as we went. I kicked him down and followed him as he tumbled to the tavern floor, neck broken. His body lay beside the first man I had stabbed, only a minute or two before. He also was dead, his head up at an impossible angle on the wall. Blood dripped through the ceiling from the rooms above. The officer lay in a pool of gore and there was another spreading stain at the foot of the steps.

Schmidt faced me holding the young blonde by the arm. He had a pistol pointed at her head.

"Leef me alone or I kill her," he cried. "You are crazy."

I must have looked pretty awful with my lashed face and bloody arms.

"Let her go," I said, stepping toward him. "I'll help you clean up this mess. I know you didn't want to help them."

"Das iss right," he whined. "You go, go avay. Ve vill clean up here."

I took another step, sheathing my blade and showing him my open and empty hands. "We can toss the bodies in the river. Put sand on the bloody places, scrub them out."

"Ja, ja," he said, stepping back and pulling the frightened girl with him.

"Let her go," I said quietly. "She's a good girl."

"Nein, she helped you, dumkopf." He tripped over a fallen chair, the girl yanked herself free and Schmidt staggered, almost fell and fired at me, cursing. His ball smashed into the ceiling near the stairwell.

"Go see about your friend," I said to the blonde as I collared Schmidt and shook him. "See about Jean."

The girl ran off, jumping over the two bodies at the foot of the steps.

"Now," I told the mewling inn-keeper, "you are going to dispose of your friends." I bent and relieved the dead officer of his purse, boots and sword and then had the German drag him to the river and roll him in. He did the same with the two soldiers piled at the foot of his stairs after I searched their bodies. By the time we came back from the third trip to the river bank the girls were sitting at one of the tables, all four of them. Jean looked very pale but they were getting some liquor into her, and the blonde assured me she was going to be all right.

Schmidt dragged the dead men from the upper floor down his steps, their heads bumping on each tread, and then pulled them to the river. One of them, a non-com, had a heavy purse which I gave to the girls to share. On the final trip, he stopped by the fast flowing stream, puffing and red-faced, holding the dead man's feet. "How many iss it you haf killed?" he asked.

"I didn't count," I told him truthfully.

"Ten, I think," the fat man said. "You haf killed ten men. You are with blood cofered."

"Sounds about right," I said. "And one more to go." I pulled out my bayonet and felt its long edge.

He dropped the feet of the man he was dragging and stared at me. "No," he said, shaking his head, his jowls quivering, "No!" and he ran to the river and jumped, landing with a huge splash. He obviously had no idea how to swim and he waved, kicked and yelled until he disappeared, bobbing along in the current. I pushed the last Brit in after him, washed my hands and forearms and went back to the tavern just as a stage arrived.

Two of the girls, including my blonde friend, took care of the passengers while the driver and his man unhooked the team and made the exchange with the tavern's black stableman. Another of the girls was using a mop at the foot of the steps. Blood had stopped dripping from the floorboards above and the fourth girl was cleaning up the puddles it had made on the tavern floor. When the stage departed, I called them together and then brought in the stableman who also was the ferryman and gate keeper as needed.