“We hear you’ve some brandy, missus,” one of them said, reaching out in a quasi-friendly manner and seizing me by the wrist. “Come and share it with us, eh?”
“Let go of her,” Denzell said, in a tone of deep menace that made the man holding my wrist actually let go in surprise. He blinked at Denzell, whom he evidently hadn’t noticed before.
“Who the hell’re you?” he asked, though more in tones of befuddled astonishment than confrontation.
“I’m a surgeon with the Continental army,” Denzell said firmly, and moved to stand beside me, thrusting a shoulder between me and the men, all of whom were clearly very drunk. One of them laughed at this, a high heeheehee sound, and his fellow giggled and poked him, repeating, “surgeon with the Continental ar-my.”
“Gentlemen, you must go,” Denzell said, edging farther in front of me. “We have wounded men who need attention.” He stood with his fists loosely curled, in the attitude of a man ready to do battle—though I was fairly sure he wouldn’t. I hoped intimidation would do the trick, but glanced at my bottle; it was three-quarters empty—perhaps it would be better to give it to them and hope they went away. . . .
I could see a small party of wounded Continentals coming down the road, two on stretchers, and a few more stumbling, stripped to their bloodied shirts, coats in their hands being dragged in the dust. I reached for the bottle, intending to thrust it at the intruders, but a movement at the corner of my eye made me look toward the shade where the girls were tending prisoners. Both Rachel and Dottie were standing upright, watching the proceedings, and at this point, Dottie, with a strong look of determination on her face, began to walk toward us.
Denny saw her, too; I could see the sudden shift in his posture, a touch of indecision. Dorothea Grey might be a professed Quaker, but her family blood clearly had its own ideas. And I could—rather to my surprise—tell exactly what Denzell was thinking. One of the men had already noticed Dottie and had turned—swaying—in her direction. If she confronted them and one or more of them attacked her . . .
“Gentlemen.” I interrupted the hum of interest among our visitors, and three pairs of bloodshot eyes turned slowly toward me. I withdrew one of the pistols Jamie had given me, pointed it into the air, and pulled the trigger.
It went off with a violent jerk and a blam that momentarily deafened me, along with a puff of acrid smoke that made me cough. I wiped streaming eyes on my sleeve in time to see the visitors departing hastily, with anxious looks back over their shoulders. I located a spare handkerchief tucked into my stays and wiped a smear of soot from my face, emerging from the damp linen folds to find the doors of the church occupied by several surgeons and orderlies, all goggling at me.
Feeling rather like Annie Oakley, and repressing the urge to try to twirl my pistol—mostly for fear I would drop it; it was nearly a foot long—I re-holstered my weapon and took a deep breath. I felt a trifle light-headed.
Denzell was regarding me with concern. He swallowed visibly and opened his mouth to speak.
“Not now,” I said, my own voice sounding muffled, and nodded toward the men coming toward us. “There isn’t time.”
THE DANGERS OF SURRENDER
FOUR BLOODY HOURS. Hours spent slogging through an undulant countryside filled with mobs of Continental soldiers, clots of militia, and more bloody rocks than anyplace required for proper functioning, if you asked Grey. Unable to stand the blisters and shreds of raw skin any longer, he’d taken off his shoes and stockings and thrust them into the pockets of his disreputable coat, choosing to hobble barefoot for as long as he could bear it.
Should he meet anyone whose feet looked his size, he thought grimly, he’d pick up one of the omnipresent rocks and avail himself.
He knew he was close to the British lines. He could feel the tremble in the air. The movement of large bodies of men, their rising excitement. And somewhere, no great distance away, the point where excitement was turning to action.
He’d felt the presence of fighting since just past daylight. Sometimes heard shouting and the hollow boom of muskets. What would I do if I were Clinton? he’d wondered.
Clinton couldn’t outstrip the pursuing Rebels; that was clear. But he would have had time enough to choose decent ground on which to stand and to make some preparation.
Chances were, some part of the army—Cornwallis’s brigade, maybe; Clinton wouldn’t leave von Knyphausen’s Hessians to stand alone—would have taken up some defensible position, hoping to hold off the Rebels long enough for the baggage train to get away. Then the main body would wheel and take up its own position—perhaps occupying a village. He’d walked through two or three such, each with its own church. Churches were good; he’d sent many a scout up a steeple in his day.
Where’s William most likely to be? Unarmed and unable to fight, chances were that he was with Clinton. That’s where he should be. But he knew his son.
“Unfortunately,” he muttered. He would, without hesitation, lay down both life and honor for William. That didn’t mean he was pleased at the prospect of having to do so.
Granted, the current circumstance was not William’s fault. He had to admit—reluctantly—that it was at least in part his own. He’d allowed William to undertake intelligence work for Ezekiel Richardson. He should have looked much more closely into Richardson . . .
The thought of having been gulled by the man was almost as upsetting as what Percy had told him.
He could only hope to run across Richardson in circumstances that would allow him to kill the man unobtrusively. But if it had to be at high noon in full view of General Clinton and his staff—so bloody be it.