A Girl Called Samson (45)

“I have to go back,” I shouted. “They’ll be slaughtered.”

“We need more men,” Sproat said, shaking his head and keeping his hand on my reins. “Keep going south for four miles,” he told me. “There are always a few detachments at Dobbs Ferry and a French field hospital too. Tell them to hurry.”

I nodded and spurred the horse forward, afraid it was already too late. I heard Sproat rallying his men behind me.

“Let’s go!” he roared, and a cry went up, triumphant and eager, and when I looked back, they had begun to run.



I reached Dobbs Ferry at full light, and men were marching toward Tarrytown within fifteen minutes of my arrival, a wagon with a French surgeon named Lepien and his staff bouncing along behind them.

By the time I got back, the battle was over. Sproat and his men had turned the tide, and DeLancey’s riders had fled, though DeLancey himself was not among the dead or dying. No one pursued them; no one could. We were not cavalry. The nut-brown horse with the three white stockings that had taken me on my predawn ride was picketed with the general’s gray. He belonged to the Continentals now, and General Paterson said he too would be taken to the Point. There wasn’t enough forage for cattle or cavalry on the hills around the garrison, and most of the livestock was kept at Peekskill, but I made sure he was watered and his gore-soaked saddle removed before I left him.

I did not look through the saddlebags. I didn’t want to know anything about the man who’d ridden him into camp, the man with startled eyes and curling hair whose life I’d taken.

I knew Noble was dead, and I avoided the spot where he had fallen. But I was the one who found Jimmy. I went looking for him, knowing where he’d last been, and almost certain of what I would find. He’d not even moved from the spot by the creek. A hole gaped at the base of his throat, and his musket was still strapped to his chest. His eyes were closed like he’d walked to his picket, propped himself against a tree, and fallen back to sleep. Blood soaked his shirt and made a pool in his lap.

I couldn’t carry his body back to camp by myself and went in search of help. That’s when I found Beebe, who must have come from his position at the northeast corner and run right into the end of a bayonet. If he’d gotten to kill a redcoat before he died, as he’d sworn to do, I didn’t know, but his premonition had proven true. He’d died without ever knowing what heaven felt like.

Death had taken his smirk and his scowl. He was gray-faced and gutted, and I crouched beside him for a moment, unable to comprehend the reality of it all. The birds warbled above me and the sky was blue. That death could exist on a beautiful day was inconceivable to me.

General Paterson had seen it all before. I could tell by the quiet in his face and the set of his shoulders. His tent was commandeered by Lepien and his staff. By the end of the day, two men had survived amputation and another two hadn’t. The rest of the injured were prepared to be taken to the field hospital near Dobbs Ferry. It was closer than the Point.

Captain Webb’s company had lost twelve men. Fifteen more were injured, five grievously. Our orders to head east to escort supplies were rescinded. Colonel Sproat would take another detachment and go on without us. A few of his men had been injured, but none of them lost, and they returned to their encampment to ready themselves to move the next morning.

Our dead were wrapped in their blankets and piled in the back of a wagon. They were to be taken to the Point and buried there in the graveyard overlooking the water. DeLancey’s dead were buried where they’d fallen, their shoes and gear given to the men most in need. Captain Webb said no one would be back to collect the bodies. Not under the circumstances.

I took a shirt from Jimmy’s sack and felt a fissure opening in my chest. I’d been moving in a state of nothingness since dawn. No pain. No anger. No horror. No shame. But when I took Jimmy’s shirt, knowing he had no use for it and mine was in tatters, the nothingness became something unbearable, and I left Noble’s haversack to others, Beebe’s too, and wrapped myself in work until night fell and the camp grew quiet. The watch had doubled, but I was not among those assigned to duty. General Paterson had intervened when I volunteered.

“Not tonight, Shurtliff. Your nose is swollen and your eyes are turning black,” he said, frowning. “You’ve done enough.”

I touched my face, surprised, and Noble’s blood-soaked visage rose in my mind. He’d struck me when he saved my life.

“You’re also covered in blood,” my captain informed. “Go wash and get some rest.”

I looked down at my shirt, the right sleeve hanging in ribbons, but it was the sight of my long, thin feet that threatened my composure. They were splattered with the blood of men I knew and men I didn’t. I couldn’t decide which was worse, to be marked by those you’d killed or those you’d cared about.

My pack still sat beside the river, my boots too, and for a moment I envied what they had not seen, what they’d avoided, waiting for me to put them on again. I walked into the creek like I’d done the night before and began to wash, my sorrow billowing like the blood in the water. It was only then, when the water freed my sleeve from my skin that I realized my right arm bore a long, deep slash just below my shoulder to the middle of my arm. It was deep enough that it lay wide open, but not deep enough to expose the bone. It gaped like a toothless grin, and I moaned in protest, tears streaming down my cheeks, though it was more dread than pain, more worry than woe. It would have to be closed, and I would have to do it myself.