He was somewhat more worried about the humiliation of being shot by his own troops than about the actual prospect of death, but was not entirely oblivious to the risk of that, either.
The bloody fog had got thicker, if anything. He looked in vain for the sun, to give some sense of direction, but the sky was invisible.
He fought back the small quiver of panic that tickled his tailbone. Right, there were 34,000 British troops on this bloody island; he had to be within pistol shot of any number of them at this moment. And you only need be in pistol shot of one American, he reminded himself, grimly pushing through a growth of larches.
He heard rustlings and the cracking of branches nearby; the wood was inhabited, no doubt about it. But by whom?
The British troops wouldn’t be moving in this fog, that was one thing. Curse Perkins! If he heard movement, then, as of a body of men, he’d stop and stay hidden. And otherwise … all he could hope to do was to run across a body of troops, or to hear something unmistakably military in nature—shouted orders, perhaps …
He rode on slowly for some time, and finally put the pistol away, finding the weight of it wearisome. God, how long had he been out? An hour? Two? Ought he to turn around? But he had no way of knowing what “around” was—he might be traveling in circles; the ground all looked the same, a gray blur of trees and rocks and grasses. Yesterday, he’d spent every minute keyed to fever pitch, ready for the attack. Today, his enthusiasm for fighting had ebbed substantially.
Someone stepped out in front of him and the horse reared, so abruptly that William had only the vaguest impression of the man. Enough to know he wasn’t wearing a British uniform, though, and he would have snatched his pistol out, were both hands not occupied in trying to control the horse.
The horse, having given way to hysteria, crow-hopped in mad circles, jarring William to the spine with each landing. His surroundings spun past in a blur of gray and green, but he was half conscious of voices, whooping in what might be either derision or encouragement.
After what seemed an age, but must be only half a minute or so, William succeeded in bringing the bloody creature to a standstill, panting and blowing, still flinging its head around, the whites of its eyes showing, gleaming wet.
“You fucking piece of cat’s meat!” William said to it, hauling its head round. The horse’s breath sank damp and hot through the doeskin of his breeches, and its sides heaved under him.
“Not the best-tempered horse I ever seen,” a voice agreed, and a hand came up, seizing the bridle. “Healthy-looking, though.”
William got a glimpse of a man in hunting dress, stout and swarthy—and then someone else seized him round the waist from behind and hauled him bodily off the horse.
He hit the ground hard and flat on his back, knocking out his wind, but tried valiantly to get to his pistol. A knee pressed into his chest, and a large hand wrestled the pistol out of his grip. A bearded face grinned down at him.
“Not very sociable,” the man said, reproving. “Thought you-all was meant to be civilized, you British.”
“You let him get up and at you, Harry, I imagine he’d civilize you, all right.” This was another man, shorter and slightly built, with a soft, educated voice like a schoolmaster, who peered over the shoulder of the man kneeling on William’s chest. “You could let him breathe, though, I suppose.”
The pressure on William’s chest relaxed, and he got a whisper of air into his lungs. This was promptly driven out again when the man who had held him down punched him in the stomach. Hands promptly began to rifle his pockets, and his gorget was jerked off over his head, painfully scraping the underside of his nose. Someone reached round him and unbuckled his belt, neatly removing it with a whistle of pleasure at the equipment attached.
“Very nice,” said the second man, approving. He glanced down at William, lying on the ground and gasping like a landed fish. “I thank you, sir; we’re much obliged. All right, Allan?” he called, turning toward the man holding the horse.
“Aye, I’ve got ’im,” said a nasal Scottish voice. “Let’s be off!”
The men moved away, and for an instant, William thought they had left. Then a meaty hand seized his shoulder and flipped him over. He writhed up onto his knees by sheer will, and the same hand seized his pigtail and jerked his head back, exposing his throat. He caught the gleam of a knife, and the man’s broad grin, but had neither breath nor time for prayers or curses.
The knife slashed down, and he felt a yank at the back of his head that brought water to his eyes. The man grunted, displeased, and hacked twice more, finally coming away triumphant, William’s pigtail held up in a ham-sized hand.
“Souvenir,” he said to William, grinning, and whirling on his heel, made off after his friends. The horse’s whinny drifted back to William through the fog, mocking.
He wished, urgently, that he had managed to kill at least one of them. But they’d taken him as easily as a child, plucked him like a goose and left him lying on the ground like a fucking turd! His rage was so overwhelming that he had to stop and punch a tree trunk. The pain of that left him gasping, still murderous but breathless.
He clutched the injured hand between his thighs, hissing between his teeth until the pain abated. Shock was mingling with fury; he felt more disoriented than ever, his head spinning. Chest heaving, he reached behind his head with his sound hand, feeling the bristly stumpage left there—and overcome with fresh rage, kicked the tree with all his strength.
He limped round in circles, swearing, then finally collapsed onto a rock and put his head down on his knees, panting.
Gradually, his breath slowed, and his ability to think rationally began to return.
Right. He was still lost in the wilds of Long Island, only now minus horse, food, or weapons. Or hair. That made him sit up straight, fists clenched, and he fought back the fury, with some difficulty. Right. He hadn’t time to be angry now. If he ever laid eyes on Harry, Allan, or the little man with the educated voice … well, time enough for that when it happened.
For now, the important thing was to locate some part of the army. His impulse was to desert on the spot, take ship to France, and never come back, leaving the army to presume that he’d been killed. But he couldn’t do that for assorted reasons, not least his father—who’d probably prefer that he was killed than run cravenly away.
No help for it. He rose resignedly to his feet, trying to feel grateful that the bandits had at least left him his coat. The fog was lifting a little here and there, but still lay damp and chilly on the ground. Not that he was troubled by that; his own blood was still boiling.
He glared round at the shadowy shapes of rocks and trees. They looked just like all the other fucking rocks and trees he’d encountered in the course of this misbegotten day.
“Right,” he said aloud, and stabbed a finger into the air, turning as he did so. “Eeny-meeny-miney-mo, catch a Frenchy by the toe, if he’s squealing—oh, the hell with it.”
Limping slightly, he set off. He had no idea where he was going, but he had to move, or burst.
He entertained himself for some little time in reimagining the recent encounter, with satisfying visions of himself seizing the fat man named Harry and wringing his nose into bloody pulp before smashing his head on a rock. Grabbing the knife away from him and gutting that supercilious little bastard … ripping his lungs out … there was a thing called the “blood eagle” that the savage German tribes used to do, slitting a man’s back and dragging out his lungs through the slits, so they flapped like wings as he died …
Gradually, he grew calmer, only because it was impossible to sustain such a level of fury.
His foot felt better; his knuckles were skinned, but not throbbing as much, and his fantasies of revenge began to seem faintly absurd to him. Was that what the fury of battle was like? he wondered. Did you want not just to shoot and stab because it was your duty to kill, but did you like it? Want it like wanting a woman? And did you feel like a fool after
doing it?
He’d thought about killing in battle. Not all the time, but on and off. He’d made a great effort to visualize it when he’d made up his mind to join the army. And he did realize that there might be regret attached to the act.
His father had told him, baldly and with no effort at self-justification, about the circumstances under which he had killed his first man. Not in battle, but following one. The point-blank execution of a Scot, wounded and left on the field at Culloden.
“Under orders,” his father had said. “No quarter to be given; those were our written orders, signed by Cumberland.” His father’s eyes had been fixed on his bookshelves during the telling, but at this point he’d looked at William directly.
“Orders,” he repeated. “You follow orders, of course; you have to. But there will be times when you have no orders, or find yourself in a situation which has changed suddenly. And there will be times—there will be times, William—when your own honor dictates that you cannot follow an order. In such circumstances, you must follow your own judgment, and be prepared to live with the consequences.”
William had nodded, solemn. He’d just brought his commission papers for his father to look over, Lord John’s signature being required as his guardian. He’d regarded the signing as a mere formality, though; he hadn’t been expecting either a confession or a sermon—if that’s what this was.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” his father had said abruptly. “I shouldn’t have shot him.”
“But—your orders—”
“They didn’t affect me, not directly. I hadn’t yet got my commission; I’d gone with my brother on campaign, but I wasn’t a soldier yet; I wasn’t under the army’s authority. I could have refused.”
“If you had, wouldn’t someone else have shot him?” William asked practically.
His father smiled, but without humor.
“Yes, they would. But that’s not the point. And it’s true that it never occurred to me that I had a choice in the matter—but that is the point. You always have a choice, William. Do remember that, will you?”
Without waiting for an answer, he’d leaned forward and plucked a quill from the blue-and-white Chinese jar on his desk, and flipped open his rock-crystal inkwell.
“You’re sure?” he’d said, looking seriously at William, and at the latter’s nod, signed his name with a flourish. Then had looked up and smiled.
“I’m proud of you, William,” he’d said quietly. “I always will be.”
William sighed. He didn’t doubt that his father would always love him, but as for making him proud … this particular expedition did not seem likely to cover him in glory. He’d be lucky to get back to his own troops before someone noticed how long he’d been gone and raised the alarm. God, how ignominious, to get lost and robbed, as his first notable act!
Still, better than having his first notable act being killed by bandits.
He continued to make his way cautiously through the fog-draped woods. The footing wasn’t bad, though there were boggy places where the rain had pooled in low spots. Once, he heard the ragged crack of musket fire and hurried toward it, but it stopped before he came in sight of whoever had been firing.
He trudged grimly along, wondering just how long it might take to traverse the whole of the bloody island on foot, and how close he was to having done so? The ground had risen sharply; he was climbing now, sweat running freely down his face. He fancied the fog was thinning as he climbed, and sure enough, at one point he emerged onto a small rocky promontory and had a brief glimpse of the ground below—completely covered in swirling gray fog. The sight gave him vertigo, and he was obliged to sit down on a rock for a few moments with his eyes closed before continuing.
Twice, he heard the sound of men and horses, but the sound was subtly wrong; the voices didn’t have the rhythms of the army, and he turned away, edging cautiously in the opposite direction.
He found the ground change abruptly, becoming a sort of scrub forest, full of stunted trees poking from a light-colored soil that scrunched under his boots. Then he heard water—waves lapping on a beach. The sea! Well, thank God for that, he thought, and hastened his steps toward the sound.
As he made his way toward the sound of the waves, though, he suddenly perceived other sounds.
Boats. The grating of hulls—more than one—on gravel, the clank of oarlocks, splashing. And voices. Hushed voices, but agitated. Bloody hell! He ducked under the limb of a runty pine, hoping for a break in the drifting fog.
A sudden movement sent him lunging sideways, hand reaching for his pistol. He barely remembered that the pistol was gone, before realizing that his adversary was a great blue heron, which eyed him with a yellow glare before launching itself skyward in a clatter of affront. A cry of alarm came from the bushes, no more than ten feet away, together with the boom of a musket, and the heron exploded in a shower of feathers, directly over his head. He felt drops of the bird’s blood, much warmer than the cold sweat on his face, and sat down very suddenly, black spots dizzy before his eyes.
He didn’t dare move, let alone call out. There was a whisper of voices from the bushes, but not loud enough that he could make out any words. After a few moments, though, he heard a stealthy rustling that moved gradually away. Making as little noise as possible, he rolled onto hands and knees and crawled for some distance in the other direction, until he felt it safe to rise to his feet again.
He thought he still heard voices. He crept closer, moving slowly, his heart thumping. He smelled tobacco, and froze.
Nothing moved near him, though—he could still hear the voices, but they were a good way distant. He sniffed, cautiously, but the scent had vanished; perhaps he was imagining things. He moved on, toward the sounds.
He could hear them clearly now. Urgent, low-voiced calls, the rattle of oarlocks and the splash of feet in the surf. The shuffle and murmur of men, blending—almost—with the susurrus of sea and grass. He cast one last desperate glance at the sky, but the sun was still invisible. He had to be on the western side of the island; he was sure of it. Almost sure of it. And if he was …
If he was, the sounds he was hearing had to be those of American troops, fleeing the island for Manhattan.
“Don’t. Stir.” The whisper behind him coincided exactly with the pressure of a gun’s barrel, jammed hard enough into his kidney as to freeze him where he stood. It withdrew for an instant and returned, rammed home with a force that blurred his eyes. He made a guttural sound and arched his back, but before he could speak, someone with horny hands had seized his wrists and jerked them back.
“No need,” said the voice, deep, cracked, and querulous. “Stand aside and I’ll shoot him.”
“No, ’ee won’t,” said another, just as deep but less annoyed. “ ’e’s nobbut a youngun. And pretty, too.” One of the horny hands stroked his cheek and he stiffened, but whoever it was had already bound his hands tight.
“And if ’ee meant to shoot ’im, you’m ’ve done it already, sister,” the voice added. “Turn y’self, boy.”
Slowly, he turned round, to see that he had been captured by a pair of old women, short and squat as trolls. One of them, the one with the gun, was smoking a pipe; it was her tobacco he’d smelled. Seeing the shock and disgust on his features, she lifted one corner of a seamed mouth while keeping a firm grip on the pipestem with the stumps of brown-stained teeth.
“ ’andsome is as ’andsome does,” she observed, looking him up and down. “Still, no need to waste shot.”
“Madam,” he said, collecting himself and trying for charm. “I believe you mistake me. I am a soldier of the King, and—”
Both of them burst into laughter, creaking like a pair of rusty hinges.
“Wouldn’t never’ve guessed,” the pipe-smoker said, grinning round the stem of her pipe. “Thought ’ee was a jakesman, sure!”
“Hush up, sonny,” her sister interrupted his further attempt to speak. “We bain’t going to harm ’ee, so long as ’e
e stands still and keeps mum.” She eyed him, taking in the damage.
“Been in the wars, have ’ee?” she said, not without sympathy. Not waiting for an answer, she pushed him down onto a rock, this liberally crusted with mussels and dripping weed, from which he deduced his closeness to the shore.
He didn’t speak. Not for fear of the old women, but because there was nothing to say.
He sat, listening to the sounds of the exodus. No idea how many men might be involved, as he had no notion how long it had been going on. Nothing useful was said; there were only the breathless half-heard exchanges of men working, the mutter of waiting, here and there the sort of muffled laughter born of nervousness.
The fog was lifting off the water. He could see them now—not more than a hundred yards away, a tiny fleet of rowboats, dories, here and there a fishing ketch, moving slowly to and fro across water smooth as glass—and a steadily dwindling crowd of men on shore, keeping their hands on their guns, glancing continually over their shoulders, alert for pursuit.
Little did they know, he reflected bitterly.
At the moment, he had no concern for his own future; the humiliation of being an impotent witness as the entire American army escaped under his nose—and the further thought of being obliged to return and recount this occurrence to General Howe—was so galling that he didn’t care whether the old women had it in mind to cook and eat him.
Focused as he was on the scene on the beach, it didn’t occur to him at once that if he could now see the Americans, he was himself visible to them. In fact, so intent were the Continentals and militiamen on their retreat that none of them did notice him, until one man turned away from the retreat, seeming to search the upper reaches of the shore for something.
The man stiffened, then, with a brief glance back at his oblivious companions, came purposefully up across the shingle, eyes fixed on William.
“What’s this, Mother?” he asked. He was dressed in the uniform of a Continental officer, built short and wide, much like the two women, but a good deal bigger, and while his face was outwardly calm, there were calculations going on behind his bloodshot eyes.
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