Redcoat

by Bernard Cornwell

  The horse nuzzled him, then Sam turned away to climb the three steps to the tack room. As he reached the second step he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and instinctively broke to his right, rolled down the steps, and seized the first weapon to hand – an empty water pail.

  Sergeant Scammell was a believer in sudden and overwhelming force, but Sam’s quickness had spoilt his attack. Scammell, stepping from the dark space behind the pulpit, had tried to stun Sam with a blow of a reversed musket, but instead Sam was untouched, crudely armed, and ready to fight.

  “Stop!” The voice came from the back of the church.

  Sam looked into the shadows and saw Captain Vane appear from behind the horsestalls. The Captain closed the church door, then walked up the aisle. A moment ago Sam had been exhilarating in nonsense, but suddenly the echoing church seemed a place of strange menace. Vane, whose face seemed feverish in the dull light, stopped by the stallion’s stall. “Where is she, Sam?”

  “Who, sir?”

  Vane did not answer. Instead he stroked the stallion’s nose. “I thought I told you to stay with Captain Andre?”

  “He wanted his horse, sir.” Sam nodded towards Andre’s mare stabled halfway down the aisle. “And I was going to borrow yours, sir, because – ”

  Vane cut the explanation off with an impatient gesture. “Did you meet your girl today, Sam?”

  “My girl?” Sam backed up the steps. “No, sir.”

  Vane smiled. “I don’t think she likes you, Sam. She was supposed to meet you here a half-hour ago.”

  Sam said nothing and understood nothing. Scammell, below him, hefted the musket.

  “Drop the bucket, Sam,” Vane said softly. He waited. “I said drop it!”

  Sam released his grip and the wooden pail rolled down the three steps.

  “Did you warn her, Sam?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I wasn’t going to meet her, sir! I came to fetch the horses.”

  Vane stared at Sam as though he was seeing his servant for the very first time. “No one can be that innocent, Sam, no one. You lied to me! You said she was a kitchenmaid. She isn’t. She’s a rebel. Did you know that Miss Fisher was a rebel?”

  Sam thought the world had gone mad.

  “Answer the officer!” Scammell barked.

  “I knew!” Sam said. “Oh course I knew! She never made a secret of it!”

  “Sir!” Scammell barked the correction at Sam.

  Vane waved a hand which suggested Sergeant Scammell should keep silent. “You knew she was a rebel, Sam, but you never saw fit to inform me?”

  “Why should I? It ain’t your business!” Sam paused. “Sir.”

  “But it was my business, Sam.” Vane stepped closer. “Do you remember the attack on the forts? We were betrayed, Sam! Betrayed! And who carried the message across the river?” Vane pointed at Sam. “Your girl!”

  “No!”

  “Oh, I don’t know it for sure,” Vane said, “but I’m going to find out.”

  “She wouldn’t do – ”

  “Oh, shut up!” Vane snapped. “She wasn’t your girl, and you know it! She was sweet on a rebel. So she used you. God knows what she thought you could tell her, but she used you! And whatever she learned, she told to her precious friends. We’re going to find those friends, and stop their treachery.”

  Sam shook his head stubbornly. “She didn’t use me.”

  Vane scuffed some fallen oat husks with the toe of his boot. “You’re a fool, Sam. I like you, but you are a bloody, bloody fool. I’ve no doubt she murmured endearments in your ear, but all the time she was in love with a rebel!” Vane stepped another pace closer to his servant. “Your Caroline’s clever, Sam, very clever. Too clever to be here tonight. Perhaps my message didn’t work? Is there some special word you use when you want to meet her?”

  “No, sir.” Sam was indignant.

  “But if she sees you at her farm tomorrow, Sam, she won’t be suspicious, will she? She won’t run away.” Vane watched Sam’s face for any reaction. “You can help me tomorrow, Sam.”

  Sam’s silence made Sergeant Scammell heft the musket. “He’s bloody useless, sir.”

  “Quiet!” Vane whirled on the Sergeant, then climbed the steps until he was just two paces from Sam. “Are you in love with her, Sam? Oh, it’s understandable! She has that rude pretty look of the country girl, doesn’t she? But she’s a traitor, Sam, a traitor!” Vane saw the protest form on Sam’s lips and hastened to still it. “Quiet, Sam! I want you to listen to me. I saved your life at Germantown, remember? You owe me loyalty and trust because of that. I want those things from you now. I want you to understand that there are some things in war which are hard to comprehend. That’s why there are officers. Officers make those decisions, not men. Do you understand that?”

  Sam stepped a pace back. “What were you going to do to her tonight, sir?”

  “Just question her, Sam.” Vane smiled reassurance. “Just question her.”

  “With him?” Sam nodded towards the Sergeant.

  “So instead we must question her tomorrow,” Vane said, ignoring Sam’s question and talking instead as though what he proposed was the most reasonable course in the world. “We have to discover where she collects her traitorous messages, and I want your help, Sam. I’ve earned it!” Vane smiled. “So, are you going to help me tomorrow?”

  But Sam understood that Captain Vane did wrong. Vane would not need Scammell otherwise. The realization startled Sam. Officers might be good-tempered or bad, strict or easy, but never guilty. Never at fault. Officers could be fools or wise men, but never evil, and it was evil that Sam felt in this desecrated church. Sam stared at Vane, seeing for the first time, not an officer, but another young man, and a man, Sam thought, weaker than himself.

  Vane, when no answer came, shrugged. “Sam! You have to trust me! I want your help tomorrow. Caroline Fisher has betrayed us, and we have to stop the betrayal.” His voice was confiding, even friendly. “She’s gulled you, Sam, but she trusts you. Now it’s your turn to gull her. If you go to the farm, she won’t run away, but go with you. And you can bring her, quietly and calmly, to where I’ll be waiting. Will you do that for me?” Vane paused a second. “Not just for me, Sam, but for your King. For England!”

  But Sam was not thinking of England, but of an American boy whom Scammell had murdered before Germantown, and he remembered, too, his own pusillanimity when Sergeant Derrick had insisted the boy was a rebel. Nate had been brave, then, and Sam, to curry favour with Scammell, had swallowed the lie. Nate had scorned Sam for that, and now Sam imagined that his dead brother’s spirit was somehow listening and judging him. His decision now, Sam felt, would be the weight in the eternal balance of his soul. He could choose good, or repeat the evil he had spoken at Germantown.

  Vane had watched the struggle on his servant’s face, and thought that no reply was coming. He sighed. “I shall ask you once more, Private Gilpin, and if you decline to help me, then you are no longer my servant. I shall return you to Sergeant Scammell’s authority.”

  “I ain’t your servant anyway!” Sam blurted out. “Sir William wants me to work for him, and I’m going! Going home!”

  Vane shook his head as though he found Sam’s defiance both pathetic and amusing. “Oh Sam, Sam, Sam! How little you do know of the world.” Vane turned almost wearily to Sergeant Scammell. “I believe Private Gilpin struck you at Germantown, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir, he did.”

  “And that offence remains unpunished?”

  “Yes, sir!” Scammell was the very model of an efficient sergeant.

  Vane turned back to Sam and his voice was still that of a reasonable and kindly man. “If you won’t help me, Sam, then I fear you’ll be under arrest on a most serious charge. I hardly think Sir William will have time to remember your existence before he leaves Philadelphia? So, Sam. Will you help me tomorrow?”

  Sam hesitated again, not out of indecision, but to choose the pr
oper words that would save his soul from perdition. “You can go to hell, sir.”

  Vane stared at Sam for a regretful second, then turned away. “He’s yours, Sergeant.”

  “Dead?” Scammell’s voice was toneless.

  “I said he’s yours!” Vane had turned away to stride down the church aisle, but he paused to loop the stallion’s loosened headrope about a wooden pillar at the pew’s corner. “Sam has resigned my service, Sergeant, and I return him to your authority. You must do with him as you see best.” Vane reached the church door. He opened it, turned, and his eyes suddenly seemed very bright in the gloom. “Report to me in the morning, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir!” Scammell pulled back the flint of his musket. Sam, staring at Vane, appeared not to hear the click of the musket’s lock.

  Vane smiled. “Good-night, Sergeant.” He slipped out of the church and pulled the door shut. He pulled it hard enough for the door to slam loudly, and Sam suddenly understood the click he had half-heard an instant before and, with the quickness of a cat, he dropped and rolled and scrambled towards the altar. The crash of the firing musket coincided with the banging of the church door as Vane left, but Sam heard both. He had survived, and the bullet was buried in the choir stalls. The powder smoke billowed and stank in the church as Sam slowly climbed to his feet.

  Scammell chuckled. He felt behind him, drew out his bayonet, and twisted it on to the musket’s muzzle. “Fast, aren’t you, Sam?”

  Sam did not reply. He was watching the seventeen-inch blade. He had seen how effectively Scammell used such a weapon on a battlefield, and a bayonet was a far more certain weapon than a bullet’s vagary, and Scammell, slowly walking towards Sam, had a look of absolute certainty on his scarred face.

  The attack was not sudden or frantic, but deliberate and slow. The Sergeant backed Sam towards the altar, judging the moment, and the killing thrust, when it came, was a short hard lunge that should have driven the blade into Sam’s left lung.

  Except that Sam attacked first.

  He had stepped back in front of the blade’s menace, but he had known there was no escape in retreat, only in attack, and so, a heartbeat before the bayonet was rammed forward, Sam had twisted and leaped beside the blade. His right hand clawed for Scammell’s eyes, while his left gripped the musket’s barrel and tugged with sudden and demonic force just as Scammell jabbed it forward.

  Sam’s tug and the Sergeant’s thrust combined to unbalance Scammell. Sam felt the elation of success, butted with his head, brought up his knee, and still tried to twist the musket away with his left hand. He hit Scammell with his right, then used all his strength to drag the weapon away from the Sergeant. To Sam’s astonishment, Scammell let the musket go and Sam, pulling now with both hands, tumbled backwards. He tripped, fell, and the weapon fell across him.

  Scammell followed hard. The Sergeant was the more experienced fighter. He had been taught in a thousand gutters how to maim and gouge and cheat, and he had let Sam take the weapon so the boy would topple. Now Scammell would finish Sam.

  Scammell kicked Sam’s kidneys, then booted his unprotected ribs. Sam gasped, then Scammell’s knee thumped into his belly and the Sergeant was on top of him, fist flailing on to Sam’s face. Blood spurted from Sam’s nose. “Bastard, bastard!” Scammell grunted the insult, then clawed with hooked fingers for Sam’s eyes. His thumb slipped into Sam’s mouth and Sam closed his teeth on it, clamping down, and felt Scammell’s spasm of pain. Sam, abandoning the musket, rolled right, heaved himself to his knees, and drove his right fist into the Sergeant’s nose. He felt the bone break, but feared his own was broken too. Then a lance of pain seared up from Sam’s groin, doubling him, and Scammell grunted in grim laughter. He whipped fists across Sam’s face and, when Sam huddled behind raised hands, the Sergeant stood to kick Sam in the belly. Sam twisted towards the Sergeant, reaching for a boot, but Scammell stepped back so that Sam fell forward on to the flagstones.

  Sam saw it coming and could do nothing, for his balance was lost. Scammell raised his steel-tipped boot and hammered it down on to Sam’s right hand. The middle finger snapped in sudden agony, and Sam, on all fours, screamed with the pain. The horses, as though in sympathy, neighed in fear.

  “I’ll finish you, boy.” Scammell’s breath was coming in huge, lung-racking gasps. He plucked the fallen musket from the floor, aimed the bayonet, then drove it down at Sam’s exposed neck. Sam, his vision blurred by the punches and by the pain that lanced up his arm, did not see the attack, but he heard the grunt of effort as the blade came and he skewed aside so that the bayonet stabbed past him. It clanged on the floor and the blade bent like a wattle under the impact.

  Sam rolled, stood, and kicked. Scammell was still unbalanced from the massive thrust and Sam’s boot smashed into the Sergeant’s knee, then he followed it with hard, stinging blows of his left hand to Scammell’s face. Sam’s right hand seemed useless, but Scammell staggered backwards from the one-handed assault. Then Sam tripped on the discarded musket and Scammell used the opening to hit back. He split Sam’s top lip wide and rocked Sam back with a crashing thump to his left eye. Neither man spoke. They stood like prizefighters at the scratch, trying to punch the very blood and bones out of each other, but Scammell had two fists, and Sam only one. Sam was rocked back again and he felt blood swill salty in his mouth from a loosened tooth. Scammell, now winning, was grunting through his heaving breaths.

  Sam brought up his right hand, not clenched in a fist, but held with the heel of the hand uppermost, and he slammed it into Scammell’s breastbone, jarring torture towards the heart, and the Sergeant stepped back. Sam kicked him, hit him with a left, then drove his right hand into the sergeant’s solar plexus. The pain of the broken finger was like a red-hot flesh hook stabbing up his arm. Each time he hit with it, Sam whimpered, but if he tried to protect the broken hand he knew he would die.

  Scammell swayed back from a punch, it missed, then the Sergeant bored in, head low, and his skull cracked on Sam’s skull. But Sam had lowered his own skull to butt, and the crack of the meeting bones made both men stagger backwards.

  For a moment neither man could fight. Scammell was hurting, but Sam was hurting more. He knew that if he went down now, he would never rise. The Sergeant, half dazed, stared from a blood-boltered face, then limped forward on his bruised knee.

  Scammell ignored Sam’s blows, reaching instead to grip and wrestle Sam down to the floor where his boots could finish the job, but Sam lunged with his clenched right fist and the pain of the broken finger made him scream like a stuck pig as the blow landed on Scammell’s nose. Sam hit again. He was panting, half blinded by blood from his cut eye, but he saw the Sergeant make one last huge effort. Sam let the blow come, then swayed back so that the fist hissed past him. He hooked with his left fist and the blow had just enough force to drive Scammell down the steps, staggering for support on the front pew where the frightened black stallion was tethered.

  Sam leaned on the choirstalls. Blood trickled from his eye and mouth. His stomach hurt, his ribs were bruised or broken, and his right hand was clutched to his belly as though he could cram the pain out of it. He did not want to move.

  But nor, it seemed, did Sergeant Scammell. He stared at Sam with eyes as hard as an animal’s in a blood-mashed face. He was taking huge breaths, as if summoning the strength to make one last attack. Blood ran from his mouth. He was fumbling behind him, and Sam suddenly understood and despaired, because Scammell had seen Sam’s bayonet on the pew door, found it, and was now limping forward with the new weapon held like a long knife in his right hand. “I killed your fucking brother,” Scammell said. “Now you, you bastard.” Scammell slowly climbed the choir steps. “And tomorrow I’ll have that girl of yours before I kill her.”

  Sam could not fight the bayonet, and he knew it. He backed away towards the altar that had been draped with a tarpaulin, and he pushed two fingers of his left hand into his mouth. He tried to whistle, but his swollen and bloody mouth would not make th
e sound. He spat blood on to a floor that was already spattered with blood.

  The Sergeant came slowly forward, made wary of Sam’s strength, but confident that the bayonet, sharpened and bright, would end the fight.

  Sam wiped his mouth on his sleeve, put the fingers against his tongue again, and blew. The sudden whistle shrieked in the church and, instantly, the black stallion lunged at his headrope. Hooves clattered and banged on the pew door.

  Scammell, hearing the noise, turned. The stallion, eyes white, was rearing and thrashing.

  Sam whistled again and again.

  Scammell turned back. “You’re dead, Sam. You’re dead!” He came forward, limping, and Sam gave one last piercing whistle that threw the stallion into a final lunge.

  The headrope snapped. The stallion jumped, and Scammell whirled to face the new threat.

  “Up!” Sam shouted. “Up! Up!”

  The horse, as Sam had taught it, reared, bright hooves flailing, and the Sergeant shouted at the beast, stabbed uselessly with the bayonet, and was forced backwards.

  “Up, boy! Up!” Sam was staggering forward. The stallion, neighing and frightened, reared again as Sam picked up the discarded musket with its bent bayonet. The pain in his right hand had translated into a scream in his body, making him moan. Scammell turned, sensing the new danger, but Sam had swung the musket in one last despairing effort and the needle-sharp point, bent at right angles to the weapon’s shank, hooked and tore into Scammell’s belly.

  The stallion skittered sideways. Sam, almost fainting from the pain in his hand, twisted the crude flesh hook to tear and rend, then dropped the musket which, like a harpoon embedded in its prey, hung from the Sergeant’s belly.