The Turning of Anne Merrick

by Christine Blevins

  “Sorry, Cap’n.” Burgus mumbled his apology, fished out the flung biscuit caught in the folds of his blanket, and crumbled it into his bowl. “But I stand by what I said—Americans are cowards, through and through.”

  “If the Americans are cowards, why do they flock to the rebel standard, while our fellows desert in droves?” Will Crisp asked. “Just the other day, a whole company of Brunswickers snuck off in the night.”

  Burgus snorted. “What d’ ye expect from Germans?”

  Kapitän Hoffman bolted upright. “Arschloch!” he shouted, and a bright patch of red burst like a blossom on the pad covering his eye. “It vas German soldaten who saved die Englische flanke… German soldaten!”

  Burgus scooted backward, putting as much space as he could between himself and the Hessian’s fury, wagging a stubby finger. “You just better shut your kraut-hole. No one here gives a shite about your gibberish.”

  “Lie back, lad.” Sally rushed over to soothe the Hessian back to the pillow. “There’s no use gettin’ in a twist over the likes of him.”

  “What do you know, anyway, B-B-Burgus?” Foley stuttered. “Like Cap’n says—you-you-you weren’t there.”

  The Sergeant folded his arms across his chest, his jaw set tight and jutting forward. “I know what I hear.”

  “Then hear this—” Thorn raised his cup in toast. “To our German comrades-in-arms! Without whose courage and fortitude we here may well have ended up as wolf’s meat.”

  “Aye that!” Foley leaned over to tap his cup to the Captain’s. “T’ th’ Ger-Ger-Germans!”

  Anne pushed through the canvas, sank down onto her cot with a groan, and swiped the mobcap from her head. “This place is sucking the very life from me.” Shoulders in a slump, she stared down at skirts, shoes, stockings—all saturated and crusted with mud. “What’s the point of changing out of muddy clothes?”

  Sally hung the lantern from the ridgepole, dropped her basket, and plunked down onto her bed. “No point.”

  Anne tottered over like a felled tree, landing on her side in a thump. “I don’t think I can bear another day in that hospital.”

  “I canna bear another day in this bloody camp.” Sally flopped onto her back. “But we’re trapped in this hellhole until Burgoyne makes a move. Who’d a’ thought th’ bastard would sit on his fat English arse doing nothing?”

  “And what in bloody hell is General Gates waiting for?” Anne whispered. “Why doesn’t he attack? The British have never been as weak.”

  “Bastards, th’ lot of them!!” Sally flung her pillow at the ridgepole, sending the lantern in a wild swing.

  “Shhh…” Anne warned. “Keep your voice down. Remember where we are.”

  “How can I forget?” Sally hissed. “I’m just about ready t’ go bloody mad, Annie. A wee skirmish here, and a few shots in the night—as if Gates thinks Burgoyne and his army will just dribble away on their own. It’s a foolish strategy, and we’ve no way to get word to our lads.”

  “And Burgoyne is nobody’s fool. I fear there is method to his madness, and reinforcements are on the way. Goddamn it!” Anne pounded the stretched canvas of her cot. “Gates ought to seize advantage and attack with full force now!”

  “Wheesht, Annie!” Sally began to giggle. “Would ye listen to us two? Swearin’ and cursin’ like a pair o’ drunken troopers!”

  Anne smiled. “Jack would call it honest language.”

  The whispered conversations within the protection of their own canvas served as a relief to the exhausting pretense they were forced to carry on without respite. Living out each day in constant dread, guilt, and worry had taken a toll.

  Back when they were able to pass along intelligence, there was a great purpose served by their deception—but since the battle at Freeman’s Farm, they floated aimlessly in a maddening limbo, like lost souls, with no aim or direction.

  Anne fussed with her pillow, kneading it into a doughy ball. There wasn’t even any pleasure to be found in the comfort of her bed, as sleeping served only to hasten yet another awful day among the enemy. “That’s it.” She shot up to her feet. “I’m sick and tired of living at the whim of generals. I will not do it a single day more.” She pulled out the basket stored beneath her cot. “What food do we have put by?”

  “Quit raiblin’ nonsense.” Sally waved an abject hand. “We’re caught aqueesh two armies with no way out. No way.”

  Anne dug into her pocket, separating a few pieces of silver and copper from the bits and bobs she carried. “How much coin do we have in the till?”

  Sally rolled her eyes. “Two pounds, and some odd shillings and pence… muckle good may it do ye.”

  “More than enough.” Anne snatched up the blanket crumpled at the end of her cot, and snapped it out, folding it longwise into a neat rectangle.

  “We’ve been over this time and time again, Annie.” Sally recited her reasoning by rote. “Anyone caught crossing the picket line is shot on sight. Ye’ll get a bullet in your brain afore ye have a chance t’ offer a bribe to any sentry men. And where a Redcoat bullet doesn’t kill us, a Patriot bullet will.”

  Anne rolled her blanket into a sausage and tied it into a compact bundle with a length of cordage, leaving enough slack to serve as a strap. She slipped the bedroll over head and shoulder, wearing it on a diagonal across her back like she’d seen Jack and Ned do. “Neat and tidy, no?” She tugged at Sally’s sleeve. “Come on. Get packing.”

  Sally turned on her side, propping her head on her elbow. “Until someone makes a move—Burgoyne or Gates—we’re stuck here amongst th’ bloody lobsterbacks, and that’s that. Be sensible, Annie. There’s no way for us to get to the Continental lines unscathed.”

  Sitting down on her cot, Anne picked through the things in her storage basket, and found the dagger sheathed in snakeskin Geoffrey had given her. “What if we don’t go to the Continental lines? In fact, what if we go the opposite direction—north to Saratoga?”

  “Aye…” Sally sat up. “Ye might have something there… Only th’ Loyalist camp and a single picket line to cross to th’ north…”

  “And I expect it is stretched thin at that.”

  “Still,” Sally said with a shake of her head. “We’d be heading north—farther away from our lads.”

  “No one is minding the river. Once we get to Saratoga, we can pay a boatman to take us downriver to Stillwater.” Anne strapped the dagger to her thigh with a length of grosgrain ribbon. “By this time tomorrow, you could be with David.”

  Digging down between her breasts, Sally came up with a small leather sack. She tossed it onto Anne’s cot. “There’s all our coin.” She slipped down onto her knees to scramble through her stores. “I’ve one packet of ship’s biscuit, a sack of raisins, and an odd sausage Pepperell’s Indian once traded me for a scone…” She held the withered length of pemmican up for inspection. “I’ve never been desperate enough t’ take a bite.”

  “That’s enough food to get us by for a couple of days.” Anne flipped over her pillow and pocketed her firearm.

  Sally stripped the case from her pillow, and deposited the foodstuffs and her pistol into the empty pillowslip. Anne added their mess kits, a tin water bottle, and two pairs of clean stockings. Sally wrapped the letters from David in a silk scarf and slipped the packet into her pocket. Anne pinned the mourning brooch containing a lock of her son’s hair to the inside of her stays, close to her heart, and tucked the two keepsakes from Jack between her breasts. They tied their hair up with dark-colored kerchiefs, and swirled into somber plaid shawls, draping the wool over their heads.

  Anne grabbed Sally by the shoulders. “Ready?”

  Sally answered with a grin and a vigorous nod. “This time on the morrow we’ll be within th’ lovin’ arms of our lads!”

  “We’re off.” Anne stepped out and gazed up and down the avenue of tents. There were a few campfires spotted here and there in the baggage camp, but the majority of the camp was dark and quiet, with only a handfu
l of tents glowing soft with yellow lantern light. Taking Sally by the hand, Anne scurried through the rows to hug the edge of the forest that lay between the camp and the river road.

  “We stay in the shadows as much as we can. Once we get a good ways beyond the Loyalist camp, we’ll cross over to the river road, and the going will be easier.” Anne eyed a spot along the horizon where the faint glow of the setting moon filtered through dense cloud cover. “I hope it doesn’t rain.”

  Sally sidled up to Anne, linking arms. “A darksome night,” she whispered. “Nary a star in the sky.”

  “A good thing.” Anne gave Sally a squeeze. “A dark night favors our purpose.”

  They held on to each other, at first startling and stopping at every sound and movement, every step taken so as not to stumble or fall. As eyes adjusted, they gained speed, darting along the shadows to the Loyalist encampment at the army’s northern reaches.

  Moonlight peeked through breaks in the clouds, and a mist crawled up the arc of an open field as the saw-toothed silhouette of the Loyalist camp came into view. Row upon row of wedge tents rose up in the clearing, shining soft with the glow of many campfires and faint voices in song, far enough away that neither Anne nor Sally could make out the words.

  “Ulch! What a reek!” Sally squeaked and pinched her nose. “Hellhounds, ye think?”

  “Don’t be silly…” Anne crinkled her nose at the sudden stench. Slipping her right hand into her pocket, she wrapped her fingers around the pistol grip, and grabbed Sally with her left. “Let’s get past this camp and—”

  A grunting and rustling in the brush to their right caused Anne to clip her sentence short. Both women froze in their tracks as a pointy-headed creature with long arms and legs stomped out from the shadows, no more than ten yards ahead.

  Sally hissed, “A wraith! Tha’s the smell…”

  “Hush!” Anne jerked her down into a crouch, neither of them daring to breathe.

  The wraith began to bend, turn, and stretch its limbs, and he suddenly jerked around and called out, “Pinch it off, Liam, and let’s get back. This damp’s creepin’ intae m’ bones. I can feel m’ joints rusting over.”

  “Waesacks, Dougal!” Another pointy-headed wraith rose up from the fog, tugging up his britches. “Can ye no’ leave a mon take his shite in peace?”

  The almost-full moon broke free of the clouds, reflecting an eerie light on the low-lying fog crawling over the ground. Mitered fur caps and white crossbelts became apparent in the moonlight. Anne nudged Sally and whispered, “Grenadiers.”

  Swinging his musket from his shoulder, Liam shouted, “Who goes there?”

  Musket hammers clacked back and the sentries raised their weapons. Edging forward, Dougal shouted, “Friend or foe?”

  Sally squeezed Anne by the hand and whispered, “We’ve no choice, aye?”

  Liam warned, “Show yerself, or we shoot.”

  Sally leapt up, waving her arms. “Hold yer fire!” She ran toward the sentries, arms flailing, flinging herself into an abject supplication at the soldiers’ feet, wailing and sobbing. “Praise th’ Lord on High! Happy to be found, we are! Thanks be t’ Saint Anthony and all the saints in heaven! Thanks be!”

  Stuffing her pistol back into her pocket, Anne ran after Sally with arms raised over her head. The sentries swung the barrels of their muskets to target the new threat.

  “A friend! A friend! Don’t shoot, sir!” Anne joined in the hysterical babble. “Hopelessly lost… Came late off our duty shift—”

  “At hospital, mind,” Sally squeaked.

  “We got turned around—”

  “Our light was doused… ye ken?”

  “Couldn’t see our hands before our eyes—”

  “Flummoxed. Nary a star in the sky—”

  “Thought for certain we’d be picked off by rebels—”

  “—or torn to bits by hellhounds—”

  “HOLD YER WHEESHT, WOMEN!” Liam ordered.

  A big man, as grenadiers were wont to be, Dougal towered over Sally. He gave her a nudge with his foot. “Get up.” Strapping musket to shoulder, he snatched the pillow sack from her grip, and pulled forth the packet of ship’s biscuit. “Filching rations from the hospital?”

  “Earned—never filched,” Sally countered.

  Anne nodded vigorously. “We’re each given a share in exchange for nursing the wounded.”

  “Carrying rations and blankets…” Liam used the muzzle of his weapon to push Anne’s shawl aside, eyeing the bedroll. “If ye were men, I’d peg yiz both as deserters.”

  “Dinna tell me yiv lived amongst the English for so long ye can no longer discern man from woman?” Sally giggled, and gave Liam a playful bump with her hip.

  “Maybe they’re spies,” Dougal offered, pulling Sally’s pistol from the sack.

  “Spies!” Sally laughed. “An’ what should we report t’ the rebels? Tha’ we found a pair of Scotsmen havin’ a shite in the field?”

  “We both carry pistols.” Anne revealed the gun in her pocket. “My departed husband’s dueling pair. You can’t expect a decent woman to work in camp without some sort of protection, can you?”

  Dougal shook his head. “Why’re ye headin’ north, when th’ camp lies in the other direction?”

  “North! I told ye, Annie, din’t I?” Sally scolded, snatching her sack from Liam’s grip. “But ye never listen, do ye?”

  “Thank you, trooper.” Anne took the pistol from Dougal’s hand. “Now that we know the way home, we will fly like pigeons and trouble you no more. Good evening to you both!” Anne and Sally linked arms and began the march south.

  “Hold.” Dougal grabbed Sally by the back of her skirt.

  Anne put on her best bluster. “Really! You’ve no call to detain us any longer. We are citizens of the Crown—we have rights.”

  Dougal spoke over Anne’s head. “These might be decoys. Sent tae us by tha’ bleatin’ miser bitch of a sergeant.”

  “Aye…” Liam worried the stubble on his chin. “Testing our mettle—like he did Darby…”

  “We’re no decoys!” Sally cried.

  “An’ what became of poor Darby, aye?” Dougal said. “Dealt fifty bloody stripes, na?”

  Liam grabbed Anne by the arm. “Best we take ’em t’ th’ Sergeant.”

  “If you must take us somewhere,” Anne said, jerking free, “take us to Captain Geoffrey Pepperell of His Majesty’s Twenty-fourth Foot. You’ll find him in the High Command at Burgoyne’s headquarters.”

  “Friend of yours, he is?” Dougal asked.

  Anne took a step back, the leer in the grenadier’s eye making her most uneasy.

  Sally wagged a finger in Dougal’s face. “Aye, she’s his mistress, ye great gobshite—and the Captain’ll be none too pleased to find his woman manhandled.”

  Heart thumping in her chest, Anne pulled her shawl tight. “We have their names. What is their regiment, Sally?”

  Sally leaned close and read the numbers embossed on the buttons of their jackets. “Thirty-fourth.”

  With an imperious jut of the chin, Anne said, “I insist you bring us to headquarters where Captain Pepperell can vouch for us, or I will report you both.”

  Flanked by the grenadiers, they set off on the long march all the way to Burgoyne’s camp near the Great Redoubt—the earthworks the British had built as a last line of defense. The grenadiers turned the women over to the duty officer, who ordered Anne and Sally to wait under the watchful eye of their captors, on a bench outside the large, lantern-lit marquee tent the High Command was using for headquarters.

  Sally muttered, “I saw two butter knives crossed on the kitchen table at hospital this morning—a sure sign no good would come to me today.” She leaned forward, propping chin on fists. “We are doomed to live out our days trapped in this circle of hell.”

  Anne wrapped an arm around Sally’s shoulders. “Ah, now, it could be worse.”

  “Aye…” Sally leaned her head on Anne’s shoulder. “We could
be shot or hanged, I s’pose.”

  Pepperell followed the duty officer out of the tent, Sally’s pillow sack in one hand, his hat tucked under his arm. “Anne! What on earth… ?”

  “Geoffrey!” Anne jumped up to her feet, allowing the Redcoat captain to claim a quick peck on the cheek. Off to the side, Liam and Dougal came to attention, shouldering their muskets.

  Other than a brief sighting at the hospital just after the battle, she’d not spent any time with Pepperell, but she’d never seen him looking so disheveled. He hadn’t shaved for days. The hair he always kept meticulously queued and beribboned hung lank about his shoulders. His red coat was tattered and scuffed with soot. Anne noticed three bullet holes scorched through the heavy cuff on the right sleeve, and two more torn through the skirting.

  “It’s been ages, hasn’t it?” she said.

  He flashed a tired smile. “I’ve been very busy. They tell me you were lost—?”

  Anne shook her head, deciding in that instant not to bother with a lie. “Not lost—we’ve had enough, Sally and me. We were on our way home.”

  “On your way…” Geoffrey swept back his hair. “Are you daft, madam? The area is teeming with rebels, wolves, deserters—Indians!”

  Shrugging and nodding at the same time, Anne said, “We acted on a mad impulse.”

  Pepperell dismissed the sentries, and turned back to Anne. “I really do not have time for this kind of nonsense. If you haven’t noticed, we are at war.”

  Anne heaved a sigh. “I no longer wish to be part of your war. I only want to get to my brother. A pass and escort to Saratoga is all I need. We can make our own way from there.”

  “Maybe an escort can be spared once reinforcements arrive, but for now, what you are asking is absolutely impossible.”

  “Reinforcements, Geoffrey? Is that likely?”

  “No, but it’s our best hope.” Pepperell glanced over his shoulder at a hearty cheer and the sound of glasses clinking coming from inside the marquee. “I must get back. There’s a teamster delivering a load in the artillery park. Have him give you a ride back to the baggage camp.” Geoffrey pressed the pillow sack into Anne’s hand and pulled her in for a quick hug and kiss. “Everything will be better after tomorrow, I promise.”