A Girl Called Samson (32)

I excelled at the drills. I’d made sure I would. A few times Captain Webb shouted out, “That’s it, lad! Eyes on the boy there, men. That’s the way it’s done.” I couldn’t control the heat in my cheeks, but my back was ramrod straight and my eyes didn’t slide or scurry. I just kept at it and prayed that the captain would not see fit to call attention to me again. The men liked to tease.

“Where did you learn to dance like that, Private?” Captain Webb asked me, slapping my back. I flinched but didn’t shy away.

“I used to watch the men drill on the green . . . when I was young. I practiced with my . . . brothers. I like drills. They help me relax.” I’d only hesitated over the bits I didn’t want to explain. The Thomas boys weren’t my brothers, but they might as well have been.

“And your name?”

“Robert Shurtliff, sir.”

He nodded. “Can you shoot as well as you drill?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, that’s good then. Wait until the redcoats are marching across the field of battle,” he muttered. “All those drills will go straight out of your head. Good thing too. A drill never killed anyone. You ever kill anyone?”

“No, sir.”

“You will.”

I did not fear death, oddly enough. I almost expected it. But I did not want to kill. And for the first time, it occurred to me that killing was what I’d signed up to do.



Very little is how we imagine it will be, but I’m certain that nothing, not all the running and jumping and hiding and sneaking I’d done in my twenty-one years, could have prepared me for the grueling march that followed. Each day I made it through something so unpleasant that I began to store up a well of miseries. I would tell myself, “This isn’t so bad as that, and you didn’t quit yesterday.” One day it was the mire, the next day the flies. An unseasonable heat or an unrelenting downpour.

Sometimes the voice in my head would insist that no one knew me. I could leave and become Deborah Samson again, and Robert Shurtliff would simply cease to be. That voice was a liar, and I called it such. Robert Shurtliff could cease to be, yes, but the world of Deborah Samson was no longer available to me. She had no home, no clothes, no possessions. She had no family to welcome her or gainful employment to keep her fed. Anything would be better than this, the voice insisted, but I learned to turn my thoughts to silence, or if not silence, to fill the space with proverbs and psalms. Sylvanus was right. When my own words failed me, the things I had memorized kept defeat and despair at bay.

“What are you muttering about?” a man named John Beebe asked me several days in. He was a talker, acquiring the nickname Buzzy Beebe the first day out. He kept up a steady stream of dialogue with anyone who would listen, and he’d made his rounds as the miles stretched on, seemingly unaffected by anything but boredom.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“Your lips are always moving, but you don’t ever say anything,” he argued. “You don’t talk to any of us and you keep to yourself. You’re mad as a hatter or you’re just unfriendly. Which is it?”

“Both.”

He hooted, and then he repeated what I’d said to the two fellows behind us. Jimmy Battles and Noble Sperin were their names, and I liked them. Jimmy reminded me of Jeremiah and Noble reminded me of Nat, the two bookends of the Thomas boys. Both grunted at Beebe, neither of them interested in the conversation. Or perhaps it took too much stamina to engage.

“I think you’re entertaining yourself,” Beebe contended. “That’s just mean not to share. I’m bored. If you’ve got a story or a song, you should tell me.”

“It’s just scripture.”

“Scripture?” he crowed, and turned to Noble and Jimmy again. “Did you hear that? Shurtliff would rather quote scripture than talk to me.”

“He’s bashful. Leave him alone,” Noble insisted.

Beebe threw his heavy arm over my shoulder. “Come on, now. Share the good word with me. I’m in need of salvation.”

I shrugged him off with a shudder and a hard push, and he staggered into the man on his left, sending a rippled stagger down the line.

“Bonny Robbie doesn’t like to be touched,” he said, laughing.

“So don’t touch him,” Noble interjected again. “And for hell’s sake, hold your blathering tongue.”

Beebe grumbled, “Seems awful unfriendly to me.”

I had drawn negative attention only a few days in. My weariness became worry as the men around me dropped into exhausted silence, and Beebe fell back and found someone more amenable to conversation.

He was not a bad sort. None of them were. No one seemed mean just for the sake of meanness, and none seemed too soft or especially scared. That was good. I was scared enough for all of us, but I changed my strategy after that, making myself useful instead of holding myself apart. I couldn’t roughhouse, but I could serve, and I looked for ways to ingratiate myself on my own terms. Physical distance was necessary, but comradeship was too.

I made it known that I was a decent barber—only fools used a razor on their own face without a mirror—and spent one evening shaving the whole company and greasing their hair back into tight tails. I also offered to write letters for those who lacked the skill, and even Beebe had me draft a message home. His incessant chatter didn’t translate to the written word. He could read a little, though, and saw me writing to Elizabeth, who he assumed was my sweetheart. It wasn’t a bad thing for my company to believe, and I let him rib me without ever setting him straight. His nickname for me stuck, unfortunately, and Bonny Robbie or Bonny Rob was what most of the men called me.