Текст книги "Written in My Own Heart's Blood"

Автор книги: Diana Gabaldon

Соавторы: Diana Gabaldon
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Текущая страница: 39 (всего у книги 74 страниц)

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.

He was inflamed in every particular of his being, knew it, and didn’t care.

There were men coming, rumbling up the road behind him. Americans, disorderly, with wagons or caissons. He stepped off the road and stood still in the shade of a tree, waiting for them to pass.

It was a group of Continentals, pulling cannon. Fairly small: ten guns, and only four-pounders. Pulled by men, not mules. It was the only artillery he’d seen in the course of the morning, though; was it all Washington possessed?

They didn’t notice him. He waited a few minutes, until they were out of sight, and followed in their wake.



HE HEARD MORE cannon, some way to his left, and paused to listen. British, by God! He’d had somewhat to do with artillery, early in his military career, and the rhythm of a working gun crew was embedded in his bones.

Sponge piece!

Load piece!

Ram!

Fire!

A single artillery unit. Ten-pounders, six of them. They had something in range but weren’t being attacked; the firing was sporadic, not that of hot combat.

Though, to be fair, any physical effort whatever had to be described as “hot” today. He lunged into a patch of trees, exhaling in relief at the shade. He was ready to expire in his black coat and took it off for a moment’s respite. Dare he abandon the bloody thing altogether?

He’d seen a band of militia earlier, shirtsleeved, some with kerchiefs tied over their heads against the sun. Coated, though, he might bluff his way as a militia surgeon—the beastly garment smelled badly enough.

He worked his tongue, bringing a little saliva to his dry mouth. Why the devil had he not thought to bring a canteen when he’d fled? Thirst decided him to make his move now.

Dressed as he was, he might well be shot by any infantryman or dragoon who saw him, before he could speak a word. But while cannon were very effective indeed against a massed enemy, they were almost useless against a single man, as the aim couldn’t be adjusted quickly enough to bear, unless the man was fool enough to advance in a straight line—and Grey was not that foolish.

Granted, the officer in charge of each gun’s crew would be armed with sword and pistol, but a single man approaching an artillery unit on foot could be no conceivable danger; sheer amazement would likely let him get within earshot. And pistols were so inaccurate at anything over ten paces, he wasn’t risking much anyway, he reasoned.

He hastened his step as much as he could, a wary eye out. There were a lot of Continental troops in his vicinity now, marching furiously. The regulars would take him for walking wounded, but he daren’t try to surrender to the British lines while combat was joined, or he’d be the walking dead in short order.

The artillery in the orchard might be his best chance, hair-raising as it was to walk into the mouths of the guns. With a muffled oath, he put his shoes back on and began to run.



HE RAN HEAD-ON into a militia company, but they were headed somewhere at the trot and gave him no more than a cursory glance. He swerved aside into a hedgerow, where he floundered for a moment before breaking through. He was in a narrow field, much trampled, and on the other side of it was an apple orchard, only the crowns of the trees showing above a heavy cloud of white powder smoke.

He caught a glimpse of movement beyond the orchard and risked a few steps to the side to look—then ducked back hastily out of sight. American militia, men in hunting shirts or homespun, a few shirtless and glistening with sweat. They were massing there, likely planning a rush into the orchard from behind, in hopes of capturing or disabling the guns.

They were making a good deal of noise, and the guns had stopped firing. Plainly the artillerymen knew the Americans were there and would be making preparations to resist. Not the best time to come calling, then …

But then he heard the drums. Well in the distance, to the east of the orchard, but the sound carried clearly. British infantry on the march. A better prospect than the artillery in the orchard. Moving, infantry wouldn’t be disposed or prepared to shoot a single, unarmed man, no matter how he was dressed. And if he could get close enough to attract the attention of an officer … but he’d still have to cross the open ground below the orchard in order to reach the infantry before they’d marched off out of reach.

Biting his lip with exasperation, he shoved through the hedgerow and ran through the clouds of drifting smoke. A shot cracked the air much too near him. He flung himself into the grass by instinct, but then leapt up and ran again, gasping for breath. Christ, there were riflemen in the orchard, defending the cannon! Jaegers.

But most of the riflemen must be facing the other way, ready to meet the gathering militia, for no more shots came on this side of the orchard. He slowed down, pressing a hand to the stitch in his side. He was past the orchard now. He could still hear the drums, though they were drawing away … keep going, keep going …

“Hoy! You there!” He should have kept going but, short of breath and unsure who was calling, paused for an instant, half-turning. Only half, because a solid body hurtled through the air and knocked him down.

He hit the ground on one elbow and was already grappling the man’s head with his other hand, wet greasy hair sliding through his fingers. He jabbed at the man’s face, squirmed eel-like out from under his weight, kneeing the fellow in the stomach as he moved, and made it lurching to his feet.

“Stop right there!” The voice cracked absurdly, shooting up into a falsetto, and startled him so that he did stop, gasping for breath.

“You … no-account … filthy …” The man—no, by God, it was a boy!—who’d knocked him down was getting to his feet. He had a large stone in his hand; his brother—it had to be his brother; they looked like two peas in a pod, both half grown and gawky as turkey poults—had a good-sized club.

Grey’s hand had gone to his waist as he’d risen, ready to draw the dagger Percy had given him. He’d seen these boys before, he thought—the sons of the commander of one of the New Jersey militia companies?—and, rather clearly, they’d seen him before, too.

“Traitor!” One of them yelled at him. “Bloody fucking spy!” They were between him and the distant infantry company; the orchard was at his back, and the three of them were well within range of any Hessian rifleman who happened to look in their direction.

“Look—” he began, but could see that it was pointless. Something had happened; they were crazed with something—terror, anger, grief?—that made their features shift like water and their limbs tremble with the need to do something immediate and violent. They were boys, but both taller than he was and quite capable of doing him the damage they clearly intended.

“General Fraser,” he said loudly, hoping to jar them into uncertainty. “Where is General Fraser?”



THE PRICE OF BURNT SIENNA

“COMPANIES ALL present, sir!” Robert MacCammon rushed up, panting. He was a heavyset man, and even the gently rolling fields and meadows were hard on him; the dark stains in his oxters were the size of dinner plates.

“Aye, good.” Jamie glanced beyond Major MacCammon and saw Lieutenant Herbert’s company emerging from a small wood, glancing cautiously round, their weapons in their hands. They were doing well, untrained as they were, and he was pleased with them.

Lord, let me bring them through it as best I can.

This prayer barely formed in his mind, he turned to look toward the west, and froze. On the slope below him, no more than a hundred yards away, he saw the two Craddock boys, armed with a rock and a stick, respectively, menacing a man whose back was turned to him but whose bare, cropped blond head was instantly recognizable, even without the stained bandage tied round it.

Then he saw Grey put a hand to his waist and knew beyond the shadow of doubt that it was a knife he reached for.

“Craddock!!” he bellowed, and the boys both started. One dropped his rock and stooped to pick it up again, exposing his scrawny neck to Grey. Grey looked at the vulnerable expanse of flesh, glanced bleakly at the older boy, gripping his stick like a cricket bat, then up the slope at Jamie, and let both hands and shoulders drop.

“Ifrinn!” Jamie muttered under his breath. “Stay here,” he said briefly to Bixby, and ran down the slope, stumbling and pushing his way through a thick growth of alders that left sticky sap all over his hands.

“Where the devil is your company?” he demanded without preamble, breathing hard as he came up with the boys and Grey.

“Oh. Er …” The younger Craddock looked to his brother to answer.

“We couldn’t find ’em, sir,” the older boy said, and swallowed. “We were looking, when we run into a party of redcoats and had to scamper pretty quick to get away.”

“Then we saw him,” the younger Craddock said, thrusting out his chin at Grey. “Everybody in camp had said as how he was a redcoat spy, and, sure enough, there he was, makin’ for them, waving and callin’ out.”

“So we thought as how it was our duty to stop him, sir,” the older boy put in, anxious not to be eclipsed by his brother.

“Aye, I see.” Jamie rubbed the spot between his eyebrows, which felt as though a small, painful knot had formed there. He glanced over his shoulder. Men were still running up from the south, but the rest of Craddock’s company was nearly all there, milling anxiously and looking in his direction. No wonder: he could hear British drums, near at hand. Doubtless that was the company the boys had run into—the one Grey had been making for.

“Wenn ich etwas sagen dürfte,” Grey said in German, with a glance at the Craddocks. If I might speak …

“You may not, sir,” Jamie replied, with some grimness. There wasn’t time—and if these two wee blockheids survived to get back to camp, they’d recount every word that had passed between Grey and him to anyone who would listen. The last thing he could afford was for them to report him involved in foreign confabulation with an English spy.

“I am in search of my son!” Grey switched to English, with another glance at the Craddocks. “I have reason to believe he’s in danger.”

“So is everyone else out here,” Jamie replied with an edge, though his heart jerked in his chest. So that was why Grey had broken his parole. “In danger from whom?”

“Sir! Sir!” Bixby’s voice was shouting from the other side of the alders, high and urgent. He had to go, and quickly.

“Coming, Mr. Bixby!” he shouted. “Why didn’t you kill them?” he asked Grey abruptly, and jerked his head toward the Craddocks. “If you got past them, you could have made it.”

One fair brow arched above the handkerchief binding Grey’s bad eye.

“You’d forgive me for Claire—but not for killing your … men.” He glanced at the two Craddocks, spotty as a pair of raisin puddings and—Grey’s look implied—likely no brighter.

For a split second, the urge to punch him again surged up from Jamie’s bowels, and for the same split second, the knowledge of it showed on John Grey’s face. He didn’t flinch, and his good eye widened in a pale-blue stare. This time, he’d fight back.

Jamie closed his eyes for an instant, forcibly setting anger aside.

“Go with this man,” he said to the Craddocks. “He is your prisoner.” He pulled one of the pistols from his belt and presented it to the elder Craddock, who received it with wide-eyed respect. Jamie didn’t bother telling the lad it was neither loaded nor primed.

“And you,” he said evenly to Grey. “Go with them behind the lines. If the Rebels still hold Englishtown, guide them there.”

Grey nodded curtly, lips compressed, and turned to go.

He reached out and caught Grey by the shoulder. The man whipped round, blood in his eye.

“Listen to me,” Jamie said, speaking loudly enough to be sure the Craddock boys could hear him. “I revoke your parole.” He fixed Grey’s single-eyed glare with one of his own. “D’ye understand me? When you reach Englishtown, ye’ll surrender yourself to Captain McCorkle.”

Grey’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing and gave the merest nod of acknowledgment before turning away.

Jamie turned, too, running for his waiting companies, but risked a single glance over his shoulder.

Shooing the Craddocks before him, awkward and flapping as a pair of geese bound for market, Grey was headed smartly to the south, toward the American lines—if the concept of “lines” held any meaning in this goddamned battle.

Grey had certainly understood, and despite the present emergency, a weight lifted from Jamie’s heart. With his parole revoked, John Grey was once more a prisoner of war, in the custody of his jailors, officially without freedom of movement. But also without the obligation of honor that would hold him prisoner on his own recognizance. Without parole, his primary duty now was that of any soldier in the hands of his enemy—escape.

“Sir!” Bixby arrived at his shoulder, panting. “There are redcoats—”

“Aye, Mr. Bixby. I hear them. Let’s be having them, then.”



IF IT WEREN’T for the coloring book, I might not have noticed immediately. In third or fourth grade, Brianna had had a coloring book featuring scenes from the American Revolution. Sanitized, suitably romantic scenes: Paul Revere flying through the night on a galloping horse, Washington crossing the Delaware while exhibiting (as Frank pointed out) a lamentable lack of seamanship … and a double-paged spread featuring Molly Pitcher, that gallant woman who had carried water to the heat-stricken troops (left-hand page) and then taken her wounded husband’s place to serve his cannon (right-hand page)—at the Battle of Monmouth.

Which, it had dawned on me, was very likely what the battle we were engaged in was going to be called, once anyone got round to naming it. Monmouth Courthouse was only two or three miles from my present location.

I wiped my face once more—this gesture did nothing for the perspiration, which was instantly renewed, but, judging from the state of my three soggy handkerchiefs, was removing a fair amount of dirt from my countenance—and glanced toward the east, where I had been hearing distant cannon fire most of the day. Was she there?

“Well, George Washington certainly is,” I murmured to myself, pouring out a fresh cup of water and returning to my work rinsing out bloody cloths in a bucket of salt water. “Why not Molly Pitcher?”

It had been a complicated picture to color, and as Bree had just got to the phase where she insisted that things be colored “real,” the cannon could not be pink or orange, and Frank had obligingly drawn several crude cannon on a sheet of paper and tried out everything from gray (with shadings of black, blue, blue-violet, and even cornflower) to brown, with tints of burnt sienna and gold, before they finally settled—Frank’s opinion as to actual historicity of cannon being diffidently advanced—on black with dark green shadings.

Lacking credentials, I had been relegated to coloring in the grass, though I also got to help with the dramatic shading of Mrs. Pitcher’s raggedly streaming clothes, once Brianna got tired of it. I looked up, the smell of crayons strong in my memory, and saw a small group coming down the road.

There were two Continental regulars—and a man in what I recognized as the light-green uniform of Skinner’s Greens, a Provincial Loyalist regiment. He was stumbling badly, though supported on both sides by the Continentals. The shorter of these also seemed to be wounded; he had a bloodstained scarf wrapped around one arm. The other was looking from side to side as though on guard, but didn’t seem to be wounded.

At first I’d looked at the Provincial, who must be a prisoner. But then I looked more closely at the wounded Continental supporting him. And with Molly Pitcher so clearly and recently in mind, I realized with a small shock that the Continental was a woman. The Continental’s coat covered her hips, but I could plainly see the way in which her legs slanted in toward the knee; a man’s thighbones run straight up and down, but a woman’s width of pelvic basin compels a slightly knock-kneed stance.

It also became clear, by the time they reached me, that the wounded soldiers were related: both were short and thin, with squared-off chins and sloping shoulders. The Provincial was definitely male, though—his face was thickly stubbled—while his … sister? They seemed close in age … was clear-skinned as an egg and nearly as white.

The Provincial was not. He was red as a blast furnace and nearly as hot to the touch. His eyes were white slits, and his head wobbled on his spindly neck.

“Is he wounded?” I asked sharply, putting a hand under his shoulder to ease him down onto a stool. He went limp the moment his buttocks touched it and would have fallen to the ground had I not tightened my grip. The girl gave a frightened gasp and put out a hand toward him, but she also staggered and would have fallen, had the other man not seized her by the shoulders.

“He took a blow to the head,” the male Continental said. “I—hit him with the hilt of my sword.” This admission was made with some embarrassment.

“Help me lay him down.” I ran my hand over the Provincial’s head, detecting an ugly, contused wound under his hair, but found no crepitation, no sense of a skull fracture. Concussion, likely, but maybe no worse. He began to twitch under my hand, though, and the tip of his tongue protruded from his mouth.

“Oh, dear,” I said, under my breath, but not far enough under, for the girl gave a small, despairing cry.

“It’s heatstroke,” I told her at once, hoping this might sound reassuring. The reality was far from it; once they collapsed and fell into seizures, they usually died. Their core temperature was far above what the systems of the body could tolerate, and seizing like that was often an indication that brain damage had started to occur. Still—

“Dottie!” I bellowed, and made urgent gestures at her, then turned to the sound—but very frightened-looking—Continental soldier. “See that young woman in gray? Drag him over into the shade where she is; she’ll know what to do.” It was simple. Pour water over him and—if possible—into him. That was the sum total of what could be done. Meanwhile …

I got hold of the girl by the non-wounded arm and sat her down on the stool, hastily pouring most of what remained in my brandy bottle into a cup. She didn’t look as though she had much blood left.

She didn’t. When I got the scarf off, I discovered that her hand was missing, and the forearm badly mangled. She hadn’t bled to death only because someone had twined a belt round her upper arm and fastened the tourniquet tight with a stick thrust through it. It had been a long time since I’d fainted at sight of anything, and I didn’t now, but did have one brief moment when the world shifted under my feet.

“How did you do that, sweetheart?” I asked, as calmly as possible. “Here, drink this.”

“I—grenado,” she whispered. Her head was turned away, not to see the arm, but I guided the cup to her lips and she drank, gulping the mix of brandy and water.

“She—he picked it up,” said a low, choked voice at my elbow. The other Continental was back. “It rolled by my foot and he—she picked it up.”

The girl turned her head at his voice, and I saw his anguished look.

“She came into the army because of you, I suppose?” Clearly the arm would have to be amputated; there was nothing below the elbow that could be saved, and to leave it in this state was to doom her to death by infection or gangrene.

“No, I didn’t!” the girl said, huffing for breath. “Phil—” She gulped air and twisted her head to look toward the trees. “He tried to make me go with him. Loyalist c-camp … follower. Wouldn’t.” With so little blood remaining in her body, she was having trouble getting enough oxygen. I refilled the cup and made her drink again; she emerged from it spluttering and swaying, but more alert. “I’m a patriot!”

“I—I tried to make her go home, ma’am,” the young man blurted. “But wasn’t anyone left to look out for her.” His hand hovered an inch from her back, wanting to touch her, waiting to catch her if she fell over.

“I see. Him—” I nodded toward Dottie’s station under the trees, where the man with heatstroke lay in the shade. “Your brother?”

She hadn’t the strength to nod, but closed her eyes briefly in acquiescence.

“Her father died just after Saratoga.” The young man looked completely wretched. Christ, he couldn’t be more than seventeen, and she looked about fourteen, though she must be older. “Phillip was already gone; he’d broke with his father when he joined the Provincials. I—” His voice broke, and he shut his mouth hard and touched her hair.

“What’s your name, dear?” I said. I’d loosened the tourniquet to check that there was still blood flow to the elbow; there was. Possibly the joint could be saved.

“Sally,” she whispered. Her lips were white, but her eyes were open. “Sarah.” All my amputation saws were in the church with Denzell—I couldn’t send her in there. I’d stuck my head in once and nearly been knocked over by the thick smell of blood and excrement—even more by the atmosphere of pain and terror and the sounds of butchery.

There were more wounded coming along the road; someone would have to tend them. I hesitated for no more than a minute.

Both Rachel and Dottie had the necessary resolve to deal with things and the physical presence to command distraught people. Rachel’s manner came from months of experience at Valley Forge, Dottie’s more from a habit of autocratic expectation that people would of course do what she wanted them to. Both of them inspired confidence, and I was proud of them. Between them, they were managing as well as could be expected, and—I thought—much better than the surgeons and their assistants in the church, though these were commendably quick about their bloody business.

“Dottie!” I called again, and beckoned. She rose and came at the trot, wiping her face on her apron. I saw her look at the girl—at Sarah—then turn with a brief look at the bodies on the grass, and turn back with a look in which curiosity, horror, and a desperate compassion were blended. So the brother was dead already, or dying.

“Go and get Denzell, Dottie,” I said, moving just a little so that she could see the mangled arm. She turned white and swallowed. “Tell him to bring my bow-frame saw and a small tenaculum.”

Sarah and the young man made small gasps of horror at the word “saw,” and then he moved swiftly, touching her at last, gripping her by her sound shoulder.

“You’ll be all right, Sally,” he said fiercely. “I’ll marry you! Won’t make a blind bit of difference to me. I mean—your—your arm.” He swallowed, hard, and I realized that he needed water, too, and passed over the canteen.

“Like … hell,” Sally said. Her eyes were dark and bright as unfired coal in her white face. “I won’t—be married for pity. Damn … you. Nor guilt. Don’t … need you!”

The young man’s face was blank with surprise—and, I thought, affront.

“Well, what are you going to live on?” he demanded, indignant. “You don’t own a thing in this world but that damned uniform! You—you—” He pounded a fist on his leg in frustration. “You can’t even whore, with one arm!”

She glared at him, breathing slow and hard. After a moment, a thought crossed her face and she nodded a little and turned to me.

“You reckon the army might … pay me … a pension?” she asked.

I could see Denzell now, blood-splattered but collected, hurrying across the gravel with the box of surgical instruments. I would have sold my soul for ether or laudanum, but had neither. I took a deep breath of my own.

“I expect they will. They’ll give Molly Pitcher one; why not you?”



IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME

WILLIAM TOUCHED his jaw gingerly, congratulating himself that Tarleton had only managed to hit him in the face once, and it hadn’t been in the nose. His ribs, arms, and abdomen were another matter, and his clothes were muddy and his shirt rent, but it wouldn’t be apparent to a casual observer that he’d been in a fight. He might just get away with it—so long as Captain André didn’t happen to mention the dispatch to the British Legion. After all, Sir Henry had had his hands full during the morning, if half what William had heard along his way was true.

A wounded infantry captain on his way back to camp had told of seeing Sir Henry, in command of the rear guard, lead a charge against the Americans, getting so far out to the front that he was nearly captured before the men behind came up to him. William had burned, hearing this—he would have loved to be part of that. But at least he hadn’t stayed mewed up in the clerks’ tent… .

He was no more than a quarter mile along his way back to Cornwallis’s brigade when Goth threw a shoe. William said something very bad, pulled up, and swung down to have a look. He found the shoe, but two nails had gone and a quick search didn’t turn them up; no chance of hammering it back on with the heel of his boot, which had been his first thought.

He shoved the shoe in his pocket and looked round. Soldiers swarmed in every direction, but there was a company of Hessian grenadiers on the opposite side of the ravine, forming up at the bridgehead. He led Goth across, stepping gingerly.

“Hallo!” he called to the nearest fellow. “Wo ist der nächste Hufschmied?”

The man glanced indifferently at him and shrugged. A young fellow, though, pointed across the bridge and called out, “Zwei Kompanien hinter uns kommen Husaren!” Hussars are coming, two companies behind!