The Turning of Anne Merrick

by Christine Blevins

  Anne gripped tight to her basket. “We’re heading south, Sergeant, to my brother, as was always my destination.”

  “Ah no, that’s a very dangerous course, missus,” Pennybrig said, with a gruff shake of his head. “Not wise. Very dangerous.”

  “Pardon my bluntness, Sergeant, but it makes no sense for Sally and I to follow a defeated army north on a desperate retreat with the enemy in pursuit. I’m willing to wage the southern course is the safer path for us.”

  “Still… it’s not right…” Pennybrig’s brows merged into one. “Women traveling alone in enemy country…”

  Anne laughed. “In this instance, Sergeant, enemy country also happens to be our own country.”

  “Aye, you’ve a point there…”

  “Dinna fash for us, Pennybrig.” Sally gave the sergeant a slap on the shoulder. “We’re willing t’ take our chances with the rebels.”

  “Pray it’s rebels you find, Miss Sally, for these woods are filled with deserters both British and German—cowardly, desperate men—if it’s them you meet with, they will not treat you so kind.” Pennybrig pulled the dirk from the sheath at his waist belt and offered it to Anne. “I want for you t’ take this blade. It’d ease my conscious some if at least one of you were armed.”

  “Och, d’ye take us for simpletons, Pennybrig? O’ course we’re armed.” Sally nudged Anne and the women swept open their cloaks, displaying the loaded dueling pistols tucked in at the sashes they’d wound at waistlines. “And…” Pushing back jacket sleeves, they unveiled sheathed daggers strapped to forearms with blue grosgrain ribbon.

  Pennybrig broke into a grin, resheathing his weapon. “I pity th’ ill-willie who might think to tangle with the two of you.” In a tone more serious he added, “Avoid the river road. I’d expect trouble to be lurking there in droves. D’ye know the trailhead just behind where Johnny’d pitched his big marquee?”

  Anne said, “I do.”

  “Follow it,” Pennybrig said. “That path will take you south through a cover of trees as far as Stillwater.”

  “You’ve been a good friend to us, Sergeant.” Anne popped up and gave the man a kiss on the scruffy cheek. “Take care, and keep Bab safe—bid her farewell from us.”

  “I’ve no scones for ye—so here’s my kiss instead.” Sally tiptoed up and planted her kiss on the opposite cheek.

  “I prefer kisses to scones any day.” Pennybrig grinned and waved as they set off. “Fare thee well, ladies—watch and ward—and keep to the trees!”

  Anne and Sally marched toward the Great Redoubt, ducking into the shadow of the tree line as they approached Burgoyne’s headquarters camp. The General’s lavish marquee tents were no longer standing, and were no doubt among the items packed into five covered wagons parked in a long line, waiting on oxen teams, and blocking the entrance to the trail. The pair of soldiers guarding Burgoyne’s baggage train sat crouched in the circle of light from a lantern dangling from the lead wagon, very intent on the game of dice played between them.

  Anne set her basket down and glanced up at the crescent moon casting scant light on the open field they needed to cross. Pulling up her hood, she said, “Toward the tail end, fast and quiet—on the count of three…”

  Sally tugged her hood up. “Ready… one, two, three!”

  They darted across the field at a quickstep, ducking behind the last wagon to catch their breath. Anne panted, “They didn’t see us.”

  Sally nodded. “Never once looked up from their dice.”

  A high-pitched giggle sounded, and a voice exclaimed, “Hallooo!”

  Anne grabbed Sally by the arm and they hunkered in the shadow of the wagon, but it was too late—they’d been spotted. Dressed in a beautiful blue gown and velvet cape, sucking on a bottle of Champagne, Fanny Loescher came staggering out of the trees. She threw her arms up and squealed, “Company!”

  “Shush!” Anne dropped her basket, rushed over, and slapped a hand over Fanny’s mouth, whispering, “We don’t want to call the guards down upon us—understand?”

  Wide-eyed, Fanny’s nod was emphatic, and Anne removed her hand, regretting it instantly as Fanny exclaimed, “Hiding from the guards! What fun! What an adventure!”

  “Shhhh!” Anne and Sally shushed in unison.

  “Oh, I forgot!” Fanny giggled, and put a finger to her lips, whispering, “Quiet as a mouse, is me. But those guards? Not to worry—they really don’t give a shite.” She tipped the bottle back and, finding it empty, tossed it aside to clatter over a patch of gravel.

  Anne winced, shoulders to ears, and Sally cursed, “Fiech!” leaning out to see the guards still at their game and paying no notice to the goings-on at the back end of the wagon train.

  “Maybe she’s right.” Sally shrugged. “Maybe they dinna give a shite.”

  “Of course I’m right.” Fanny bent over the tailboard of the wagon and came up with another bottle of Champagne. With a dexterous expertise reserved for the most craven, she removed the wire bale and popped the cork. Slurping at the geyser of froth that bubbled up, she offered the bottle to Anne. “It’s French…” she said.

  “Come on… away with us…” Sally handed Anne her basket, and as they turned to leave, Fanny caught hold a fistful of Anne’s cloak.

  “Hey… why aren’t you gone with the rest of ’em?”

  “Let go—” Anne tugged and pulled, trying to wrench free, dragging Fanny along. Sally dropped her basket to help Anne disengage, but Fanny maintained a clawlike grip on the fabric—clinging like a stubborn burr, she would not be plucked off.

  “Tell me where you’re going,” Fanny said, “and I’ll let go.”

  “We’re going south,” Anne whispered, trying to prize Fanny’s fingers open.

  Fanny dropped the Champagne bottle in a resounding thunk. Grasping Anne’s cloak with both hands, she cried, “I want to go with!” In a voice rising in volume and pitch, she began to chant, “Take me with! Take me with! TAKE ME WITH! TAKE ME WITH!”

  Anne managed to twist around and behind, gagging the woman’s bleating with the palm of her hand. Spitting, squealing, and kicking up a fuss, Fanny struggled. Sally engaged in the tangle of cloaks, trying to keep Fanny’s arms pinned to her side, suffering a number of kicks to the shins in the process.

  “She’s going t’ bring the guards down on us, Annie!”

  Anne heaved a deep breath, and gave the woman a violent shake. “Enough! Listen—you can come with us, but only if you promise to be very quiet and behave. Promise?”

  Fanny’s nod was vigorous. Anne let loose, and Fanny twirled free.

  “Ha!” She sneered at Sally, and in an exaggerated whisper she singsonged, “Fanny and Annie going on a great adventure. Fanny and Annie—it rhymes!”

  “Are you daft?” Sally bristled with teeth clenched. “I’m no’ goin’ anywhere with that drunken whore…”

  Fanny reached in and poked Sally in the chest. “Who’re you calling a drunk?”

  Sally gave her a rough, two-handed shove. “I’m callin’ you a drunk, ye stupid cow!”

  “The guards!” Anne glanced around the corner.

  The hissed reminder caused Sally to take a step back. All in a pucker, she stuffed loose strands of hair back under her headscarf. “Bringing that one along is madness—utter madness.”

  “Come, now, Sal—the more, the merrier…” Anne bent to pick up the discarded Champagne bottle and pressed it into Sally’s hand with a nudge and a wink. “Come on—join in the fun.”

  Anne threw her arm around Fanny’s shoulder and whispered, “Fanny and Annie are off on a great adventure!” Giving her a spin, she steered the drunken woman toward the trailhead, and with a knowing glance over her shoulder, she called, “Come on, Sal.”

  Sally came up from behind and knocked Fanny over the head with the heavy bottle. Fanny crumpled in a heap of velvet and taffeta. They dragged the unconscious woman back to the wagon and propped her up against the wheel.

  Anne said, “I feel bad leaving her th
is way. It is a cold night, and who knows when they might find her…”

  “Och, she’ll be fine.” Sally halfheartedly tugged at Fanny’s skirts to cover her exposed legs.

  Anne positioned Fanny’s lolling head to rest between the spokes, and pointed up to the tailgate of the wagon. “Climb in there and see if you can find a blanket or something we might cover her with.”

  Sally climbed up into the wagon, muttering, “I’d wager th’ whore’s drunk enough to keep herself and a whole regiment warm…” After a moment’s shuffling around, a pair of blankets came sailing out, one after the other.

  Anne spread and tucked the wool over Fanny’s still form. “Alright, Sally… this’ll do… Let’s be off.”

  Sally leaned out of the wagon. “Fetch the baskets, Annie—it’s a treasure trove!”

  The wagon was packed with Burgoyne’s personal stock of comestibles. Fanny had pilfered bottles from one of three cases of Champagne. One wooden crate contained wheels of Dutch cheese coated in beeswax and packed in straw. Another was filled with strings of smoked sausages coiled like rope. There were bushels of apples and quince. Sally opened the lid on a chest filled with tins of fine biscuits. “Whole tins!” she said, tucking a few into her basket.

  Acting as lookout, Anne leaned out to check the status of the guards. “Hurry up! We oughtn’t press our luck…”

  Sally held out a lantern. “Look!”

  Anne took the lantern, moving the shutter up slightly to expose a sliver of light. Pushing the shutter back down, she hid the flame within. “A dark lantern—it might come in handy.”

  “Fanny’s, no doubt…” Sally whispered. “Th’ wee sneak thief…”

  “A pot calling a kettle black, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Och, no! I’m capturing enemy supplies.” Sally handed out the two baskets, heavy with plunder. “That one thieved goods from her lover.” She jumped down from the wagon and took up a load.

  “Either way,” Anne said, grabbing the lantern with one hand and her basket with the other, “Burgoyne is poorer for provisions.”

  “Hold!” Sally stopped short. She snatched up the half-empty Champagne bottle and ran back to tuck it in the crook of Fanny’s arm. “For when she wakes—a bit of the hair of the dog that bit her.”

  Arm in arm, Anne and Sally entered the dark maw of the forest, excited to be at last setting out on the road that would lead them to the American camp. The good feeling was instantly squashed by the woodland’s oppressive embrace. It didn’t take long for Sally to beg Anne to open the dark lantern “but a chink,” or for Anne to acquiesce. Paned with amber-hued isinglass, the narrow band of golden light cast by the lantern offered them little comfort.

  Sally clung to Anne’s cloak, and every few steps forward brought muffled rustlings and indistinct flappings, sending new tendrils of tension creeping up Anne’s neck.

  To steady Sally’s nerve and keep them both moving forward, Anne blathered commonsense explanations. “Naught but tree frogs,” she said. “That’s only dry leaves falling from the trees,” or, “But an owl on the wing,” she whispered, struggling to believe in the veracity of her own words.

  Coming to a sudden stop, Sally let out a whimper, pointing ahead to a limb arching over the trail. A long dark object was hanging maybe five feet out from the trunk of the tree. The thing turned to and fro ever so slightly—like a body suspended from a gallows—and a shiver slithered up Anne’s spine.

  “A wraith, ye think?” Sally rasped in her ear. “No—a Ban Shidh!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Anne squinted in the dark, her bravado ringing false in her ear. She mustered up the pluck to take a few cautious steps, opening the lantern a smidge wider and angling the light at the object. Anne took one step closer, and heaved a sigh.

  “It’s only a coat!”

  Sally did not budge. “Are ye certain? Why would a man leave his coat behind on a cold night?”

  “It’s a red coat—left behind by a deserter, I suspect.” Anne walked up to the coat with lantern raised to read the regimental number embossed on the pewter buttons. “Forty-seventh Foot—the Rear Guard…”

  Something sharp poked into her belly, and Anne hopped back to swing her light toward the awful clack of a flintlock. She could see a squat figure standing beside the tree trunk, a blanket drawn over his shoulders like an Indian. The musket in his hands was fitted with a bayonet, and his familiar voice grated.

  “Drop the basket, Sally Tucker, and up wi’ yer hands or I tear a hole in this one’s belly.”

  “Annie.” Sally set her basket down and raised her hands. “It’s tha’ wee pigwidgeon, Burgus.”

  “I’m putting down my goods, Mr. Burgus,” Anne said, slowly lowering down to set the lantern and basket on the ground. She rose with hands held out, and used her reasonable, motherly tone. “We have no quarrel with you, Sergeant. You are welcome to any and all we have…”

  Gesturing with his musket, Burgus ordered Sally, “Come forward, you—come stand beside yer mistress here.” He warned, “Keep those hands up… both of ye.”

  Sally stepped forward, and scrunched her nose. “Ulch, what a reek! Has the order to retreat caused ye t’ both piss and shit yerself like a proper Englishman?”

  “Shut it!” Burgus growled and hobbled into a position nearer to Sally, dragging his broken foot bound up in a bulky bandage. In a clumsy balance he kept the musket aimed on Anne, freed a flask from his pocket, and took a sip.

  “You’ve our goods, and our promise not to tell a soul we ever set eyes on you,” Anne said. “Put by your musket, and we can all be on our merry way.”

  Burgus hurled the flask aside. “I said shut it!”

  Sally’s eyes narrowed, and she muttered, “Spineless wee smatchett.”

  “I’ll show you spineless…” He began to fumble with undoing the buttons on his breeches. A dark malevolence played across a face scathed by pockmarks, and he said, “Get down on your knees.”

  “Pfft!” Sally squared her shoulders. “I’ll see ye as maggot meat afore I ever go down on my knees to the likes of you.”

  Burgus squinted, and his stance wavered. “I said, down on your knees!”

  “Don’t do this, Sergeant,” Anne warned. “It will not end well for you.”

  “Shut yer fuckin’ gob!” Burgus snapped, jabbing at her with the point of his bayonet.

  Anne glanced up to see Sally’s hands cross at the wrists for the briefest moment, the right hand slipping down into the sleeve on her left arm.

  Burgus turned his attention back to Sally. “Yid better do as I say, for I can gut her like a Christmas pig and plant a ball in yer brain in a blink of the eye, and not think twice of it.”

  Anne kept her eye on Burgus. “Maybe you should do as the man says, Sally.”

  Sally laughed. “I see no man. I see naught but a snivelin’, ox-buggerin’ deserter.”

  “Bitch!” Burgus growled and swung the bayonet toward Sally.

  Sally leapt backward and Anne leapt forward, at once stomping down on the Sergeant’s broken foot, and bringing her arm down like a hatchet on his musket. Burgus yowled a high-pitched scream, losing hold of his weapon; the gun discharged in a bounce and flash of powder, the shot flying wild. Anne and Burgus dove to gain control of the musket, both laying hands on it, each trying to twist it from the other. Dagger in hand, Sally entered the tussle, burying six inches of cold steel between the Sergeant’s shoulder blades.

  “Garrrrgh!” Burgus yowled. Jerking the musket away from Anne, he spun around, pounding the breech end into Sally’s middle, sending her to the dirt, curled on her side, helpless, gulping for air. Anne flung her cloak over her shoulder and pulled her pistol.

  Panting for breath, Burgus spun his weapon around, and drew the musket back over his shoulder to drive the bayonet end home. Cocking the hammer and pulling the trigger in one fluid motion, Anne sent the man flying with arms flung wide to land on his back with a bloody, smoking hole in his chest. Flinging the spent pistol away
, she ran to Sally’s side.

  “Just need t’ catch my wind,” Sally gasped, arms crossed over her middle. “Go… make certain he’s dead.”

  Anne found the lantern and brought it over to shine a light on Sergeant Burgus. His eyes were open and lifeless, and his gaping mouth brimmed with a puddle of blood. “That is the second man I’ve had to kill…”

  “Yer certain he’s dead?”

  “I am.” With a trembling hand, she retrieved her spent pistol, and tucked it back into her sash. “There’s nothing so empty as a dead man’s eyes.”

  “We both had a hand in it.” Sally struggled up to her feet. “I stove my blade intae him, an’ I’ll not fash a moment over it. Th’ world’s well rid of th’ spawn.”

  An indistinct shout rang out in the distance, followed by the crackle of musket fire.

  “This is not a good place for us…” Anne scurried to gather the baskets, offering one to Sally. “Are you able, or ought we leave it behind?”

  “Are ye daft? These baskets are filled with good cheer.” Sally took the one. “No doubt I’ll be sore on the morrow, but I’m fine for now.”

  They started up the path only to pull to an immediate halt when two figures stepped out from the trees no more than ten yards ahead—shadowy men, each wearing a tall hat and carrying long guns.

  “Grenadiers!” Anne moaned.

  Sally dropped her basket and freed her pistol and, extending her arm, she clacked back the hammer and shouted, “Who comes there?”

  Anne slapped open the shutter on the lantern, the soft beam swinging wildly on a pair of befeathered Indians shading their eyes. The taller Indian waved.

  “Shé-ku, Jack’s woman!”

  Anne reached up to steady the swinging light, and squinted. “Neddy?” Sally lowered her weapon, and they both jerked at the crackle of musket fire flashing in the trees to the east.

  “Deserters,” Isaac said.

  Sally turned to Anne. “These are our friends, na?”

  “Friends…” Anne said, shuttering her lantern. “And a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Hoa.” Ned set off, waving them along. “We’ll show you the way home.”