A Girl Called Samson (44)

“Shurtliff!” Noble yelled. “Get down. Get down!”

He was beside me, thrusting his bayonet left and right, trying to skewer a rider and keep them from hewing us down, and then his head snapped back and his arms flew wide, the back of his right hand catching me across my cheek and nose and laying me flat. I scrambled up immediately, my ears ringing and my now-loaded musket still clutched in my hands. The back of Noble’s head was a puddle of blood.

“Noble?” I shouted, rolling him over. His face was gone.

“Shurtliff!” Someone was screaming my name, and another wave of riders broke through the trees. Too close to aim, too close to run. I simply thrust upward with all my might, and felt the jarring thunk and sickening slide of resistance as my bayonet met flesh. The action tore my musket from my arms and snapped the clasp that kept the bayonet secured. The rider fell back, end over end, and landed at my feet, his face planted in the earth, his buttocks in the air like he’d stopped to pray but died instead.

Someone swung at me, a broadsword that whistled and hissed through the air and sliced my sleeve from shoulder to cuff. Again, I didn’t think. I didn’t scream or even look to see who sought to kill me. My musket was gone, my bayonet too, so I reached for the hatchet on my belt. With both hands I sent it flying, end over end, toward the wielder of the sword. I didn’t think at all, I just heaved and watched it strike.

It was an old game we had played, the Thomas brothers and I. We had a target on the barn wall and rings to tally our points, and we’d hurled the axe a thousand times. I’d excelled at the game. I excelled at every game. But this was different.

The man’s eyes widened and his lips pursed, like he said “woman,” though I couldn’t be sure.

His eyes were bulging and his leather helmet hung from the strap beneath his chin. Curls clung to his forehead and his nape. He tried to lift his sword, but his arms did not cooperate. His horse stopped obligingly, its head tossing, feet stomping, and I reached up for the handle of my hatchet.

Then sound and scent—oh dear God, the scent—returned and General Paterson was running toward me, his mouth moving and his shirttails flapping, but I couldn’t hear, and I needed my hatchet.

It came free like the man was simply a stump, a stump with crimson sap. The clutch felt exactly the same, but the sound was a squelch and a squish, and suddenly I could hear again. I could hear and smell and see and feel, but none of it was real. It’s a game. It’s just like a game.

Jeremiah had played with little toy soldiers made with lead or wood and carefully covered in paint. He’d knocked them down with clods of earth or a swath of his hands, like God on high. The second man I killed slid boneless to the ground, just like the first, and I put my hatchet back on my belt, as unfeeling as a child at play.

“Shurtliff!” General Paterson was blood-spattered, and he had a musket in each hand. He tossed the one in his right like he expected me to catch it. Somehow I did, though my palms were slick with gore.

“Get on that horse, and go for Colonel Sproat. Tell him we’re pinned in here, and they’re mowing us down.”

I nodded, swinging up onto the dead man’s horse. The saddle was warm where he’d been and soaked in his blood. I almost slid right off the other side. Captain Webb was running for a line of trees to the north. Those who could followed at his heels, those who could not were left behind. The riders had come from the east, the Hudson was west, and Colonel Sproat was south, over the creek. If the band had raided him first, there would be no one to summon or warn, but we’d have heard it and been warned ourselves.

“Go, Shurtliff!” General Paterson roared, and I dug my bare toes into the horse’s sides.

DeLancey’s men made a devastating pass through the camp and wheeled around and came back again, firing on the fleeing soldiers who were barely awake, only partially dressed, and shooting over their shoulders as they ran. Bullets whizzed by my head, and they were more likely than not from my compatriots. The horse beneath me shot forward, as eager as I to escape the melee.

I didn’t feel the ride, nor could I remember it when it was all over. It was like sleep without dreaming, time without meaning, and none of it was real.

I had a jolt of awareness when I saw the campfires and heard the cries. Dawn was breaking, and Sproat’s encampment was stirring. I almost expected to be fired upon, racing full out with no blue to identify me, no company beside me, and riding the enemy’s horse.

A warning shot went up, and I knew I’d been seen. I didn’t slow, but I started shouting, making my identity known.

“I’m Private Shurtliff, Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, Captain Webb’s company. We’ve been hit by DeLancey and are pinned down half a mile north.”

They had heard the gunfire and were already assembled, Colonel Sproat standing tall among them. I reined the horse in and repeated myself, panting between words.

“How many?” Colonel Sproat asked me, his hand on my reins.

“Our detachment is maybe fifty men. Half of the company moved out last night. General Paterson is camped with us. He sent me. It was dark, and they surprised us, but I’d say the attacking party was at least a hundred men, all on horseback.”

I was interrupted by a sentinel, running up from the river toward his comrades.

“Colonel Sproat, British reinforcements in boats have been spotted on the Hudson, headed north,” he yelled. “At least a full company. Maybe more.”