The Turning of Anne Merrick

by Christine Blevins

  Jack got busy reloading. “Do you see where Ned and Isaac have landed?”

  Titus peered over the carriage wheel. “Yep. I see ’em …” A musket ball whistled past his ear, spinning him around and down onto his knees. “Shit!” he cursed, hunkering down between the big wooden wheels with Jack. “Where’d that come from?”

  Another spate of lead ball came squealing by, pinging off the cannon and thunking into the artillery carriage, sending off a spray of splinters. Titus inched up and peered out above the wheel rim with his spyglass. “A bloodyback platoon making a stand,” he said, pointing to the right. “At least a dozen muskets in close array, no more than fifty yards away. Something tells me they don’t favor our position here, with their big gun.”

  Jack wheedled under the carriage to lie flat on his belly beneath the axletree. “Let ’em come and root us out. I’m not budging, Titus. This gun is ours.”

  “Too bad our gun ain’t pointed in the other direction,” Titus muttered, scooching in to lie beside Jack. “Start picking ’em off. I’ll reload. We don’t want any of them lobsters getting close enough to soil their bayonets in our carcasses, right?”

  “That’s a fact.” Jack scooted to sit up crouched against the wheel hub, poking the barrel of his rifle out between the spokes.

  Another volley of lead buzzed by like a swarm of angry bees, whittling away at the carriage. One missile ricocheted off the cannon, grazing Titus on the cheek. He swiped at the trickle of blood. “Get to it, Jack! Take a shot.”

  “Keep your breeches on. I can’t see anything to shoot at just yet…” Jack peered down the sights at an enemy shrouded in a thick veil of gun smoke. A breeze swirled by, breaking through the smoke screen, and a small cadre of red jackets came into view. Jack trolled along the line and found his mark—a saber-wielding officer with a large ostrich plume adorning his hat, shouting the firing orders.

  “Well, I’ll be!” Jack pulled his eye away. “It’s Captain Feather Hat.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep. It’s him.” Jack kept a bead on the man, following Pepperell’s movement up and down the red line. “I have to admit, he’s one brave bastard. He’s got sure command of those men—has ’em firing in two directions.”

  “Get rid of him,” Titus advised, “and maybe the others will scatter.”

  Jack smiled and pulled the trigger, sending a ball whizzing to shear the fancy feather from the Captain’s hat. The man barely flinched. Removing his hat, he first considered the frowzy stub of a feather, then looked up in Jack’s direction. The distance was too great, the smoke too dense, and the action too hot, but Jack could swear he and Pepperell met eye to eye in that moment.

  The pause was brief. With a shout and a wave of his sword, Pepperell turned the attention of his company’s muskets and ordered, “Fire!”

  Jack and Titus flattened, faces into the earth, as a curtain of lead came flying across the field to scour their position.

  “What happened?” Titus asked, brushing flakes of wood from his hair.

  Jack shrugged. “I guess I missed.”

  Titus snatched the smoking rifle from Jack, and handed over his fully loaded weapon. “Quit playing. Knock the man down.”

  British drums began to beat the retreat as Jack took aim. The dense smoke lifted, he could see Pepperell’s company had abandoned their stand, and were running off at full speed toward the redoubts, with Pepperell trailing the pack, driving his men forward. Jack kept his sights on the Captain, the muzzle end of his rifle slowly tracking his moving target. He fired.

  “Did you get him?” Titus asked.

  “Hard to tell,” Jack answered. Squinting through the smoke, all he could make out were red jackets disappearing one by one, into the trees. “They ran off.”

  Jack and Titus crawled out from beneath the carriage and sprinted to join up with Isaac and Ned and the rest of Morgan’s riflemen coming out from behind their cover to give chase to the retreating British forces. Dashing through trees, hurdling a small creek, they broke through to a clearing, and charged across the field heading straight toward the enemy redoubt on a slight hill.

  Through a barrage of blazing iron, the Americans stormed the fortification, scrambling up and over eight-foot earth and log walls with a fearsome battle cry. Overwhelmed by American numbers and ferocity, the defenders turned and ran, only to be met by more Patriot forces attacking through the sally point at the rear of the redoubt. Outnumbered and surrounded, most of the German regulars sensibly dropped their weapons, threw off heavy brass helmets, and flung their arms up in surrender. Hessian officers railed and prodded their soldiers to stand and fight. One frustrated officer—much braided and bedecked in a golden satin sash—berated and slapped his surrendering Hessians with the flat of his saber, until he was felled by a bullet to his back—shot dead by one of his own men.

  The redoubt enclosure was strewn with forsaken snarls of regimental colors, drums, brass helmets, muskets, cartridge boxes, and haversacks, and writhing with the throes and groans of the wounded and dying. Scores of German prisoners were being herded at bayonet point while American soldiers began plundering the spoils, tugging the boots off of Hessian corpses, gathering swords and pistols from the dead officers.

  Rifles shouldered and tomahawks in play, Jack, Titus, Ned, and Isaac skirted the chaos and ran to the sally port, encountering no resistance. Once through the breach, they slowed to a halt at fifty yards. But for a few sporadic shots, the gunfire had all but ceased, and there was no more fight to be had.

  The foursome gathered on a small rise, side by side, breathing hard, watching British Redcoats, German blue coats, and Loyalist green coats streaming from fortifications like ants from anthills, disappearing into the darkening forests, retreating back to their base camp on the Hudson.

  “What the hell?” Jack raised his rifle over his head and shouted, his throat raw, his voice hoarse, “Come back, you bloodyback bastards! Come back here and fight!”

  No one answered his challenge.

  Jack dropped his rifle breech-end in the dirt, and leaned in on the hot iron. Panting, he caught his breath, and wondered at the handful of stars shining on the deepening twilight in the eastern sky. Spinning about, he was surprised at how dark it had become—not even a sliver of sun shone above the glowing western horizon. From the first turkey call in the woods to this moment, time had hurtled along at breakneck speed, and the battle that seemed to rush by in a few minutes had actually lasted hours.

  “I guess that’s that.” Titus slipped his tomahawk back into a loop on his belt, and brought out a leathern flask from inside his shirt. After taking a hearty sip, he wiped the rim on his shirtsleeve and, with a poke of the elbow, offered the bottle to Jack. “Peachy?”

  Jack took a deep swig and passed the bottle on to Isaac, who took a gulp and handed the brandy to Ned with a nudge.

  “Kwe. Have a drink, nephew—this battle is won.”

  Anne stopped mid-pour. She glanced up at the sound of sporadic gunfire, and checked the position of the sun lowering on the western horizon. The day began and progressed with such order and quiet, she feared all the conclusions drawn the evening before were in error, making the plans she and Sally devised pointless. A wasted effort.

  Sally dumped an armload of wood and looked to the western hills, one hand on her hip, the other shading her eyes. “Did ye hear tha’? Sounds like a battle in the making, na?”

  “Just see to your chores,” Anne snapped, “and leave the soldiering to the soldiers.” Shaking off the twinge of remorse brought on by Sally’s crestfallen expression, she moved on to fill the next kettle. Best to squash such thoughts before they have a chance to take root… She was tired of rising up on waves of optimism only to be dashed on the rocks of false hope. Tired of the whole mess…

  “Most likely skirmishers,” Bab offered, coming over to help Sally feed the kitchen fire. “A reconnaissance force went out this noon. Pennybrig said Burgoyne was taking a few regiments forward to get the
lay of the rebel works on the Bemis Heights.”

  Anne finished filling the kettles with water, and moved on to measuring in the salt and cornmeal for the dinner porridge. Growing in intensity, the gunfire not only continued, it became amplified by artillery barrage. More than skirmishing, I think.

  She moved from kettle to kettle, stirring the thickening mush with a paddle, listening to the pounding artillery and watching swathes of smoke rise up to hover over the hills. Once the porridge was cooked, Anne moved the kettles off the fire, and noticed the cannonade had become so incessant, the women working the hospital kitchen no longer flinched at the blasts. She and Sally carried the porridge, biscuits, and beer down the slope to their assigned tent, neither of them daring to utter an encouraging word.

  Best not to raise hopes…

  “Only a reconnaissance force,” Anne repeated as Sally ladled out corn porridge to the tent full of soldiers on edge.

  “Reconnaissance, my arse!” Sergeant Foley declared without a stutter.

  “Sergeant Foley,” Captain Thorn reprimanded, “mind your language.”

  “Beg p-p-pardon, missus,” Foley said. “But I’ve served a g-g-gun for three and twenty years—I k-ken the sound of battle when I hear it.”

  Captain Thorn took the bowl Anne passed over. “The guns do tell a story. That is a fierce bombardment. Sounds like the rebels are taking quite a beating.”

  Burgus laughed. “Burgoyne is blowin’ the damn rebels to bloody bits.”

  “It’s the rebels in peril for certain, ye think?” Sally asked, scraping the last of the porridge into Will Crisp’s bowl with sudden tears welling up in her blue eyes.

  “Never you fear, Sally,” Will said. “Our lads are trouncing ’em.”

  Anne and Sally hurried through feeding their charges and finishing up their hospital chores. Neither of them said a word as they trudged back to their tent in the deepening twilight, but when the noise from the far-off guns dwindled away, they both stopped in their tracks and stood squinting at the horizon, flinching at the now-and-then crack of a rifle shot echoing over the hills.

  Sally pulled her shawl up over her head. “I dinna care what ye say, something is going on, and I mean to find out what.”

  “You’re right. I’ll go see the Baroness.” Anne nodded. “She might know. I’ll meet you back at the tent.”

  Frederika von Riedesel and her young daughters were quartered in a gambrel-roofed farmhouse not too far from the hospital. Anne stepped up onto the wide, covered stoop to peer through the window, and her heart sank. A dinner party…

  Inside, Lucy Lennox, the Baroness, and a very pregnant Lady Harriet Acland were orbiting a candlelit dining table, setting the service with china and crystal. Anne tapped on the glass.

  The Baroness waved her in. “Mrs. Merrick, what a surprise. As you can see, I am hosting a diné for Generals Burgoyne and Fraser,” she explained while making minute adjustments to every plate, fork, spoon, and knife in the place settings. “I’m afraid I’ve no time for visiting.”

  “It all looks lovely,” Anne said.

  Harriet Acland snapped, “What is it you want here?”

  Anne took a step back. “I—I apologize for the interruption. It’s just that with all the shooting earlier, I worried that perhaps something had gone amiss…”

  “Amiss? Nothing’s amiss. Why in heaven’s name would you say such a thing?” Harriet Acland snatched up a crystal goblet and set to polishing the glass with such fervor, Anne feared it would shatter in her hand.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs. Merrick…” The Baroness pointed to the door. “The Generals will be arriving at any minute…”

  Lucy turned Anne with an arm around her shoulders and led her back out onto the stoop. “Pay them no mind. They are wound tighter than a German clock…”

  “Because of the guns?”

  Lucy nodded. “The reconnaissance force was due back over two hours ago.” She tried to put on a brave smile. “But this is the lot of a soldier’s wife, isn’t it? On pins and needles until we see our men come back safe and sound…”

  A loud shout drew their attention. Escorted by a few clusters of men on foot and several riders on horseback, a wagon had turned up the road leading to the house.

  “Look!” Lucy waved. “Here they come now.”

  None of the riders waved back. Heads were hanging low, and some of the men on foot were helping others stumble along. As the train drew closer Anne recognized only Burgoyne and Gordon Lennox among the riders. A man lay prone in the wagon bed with a blanket thrown over him.

  Frederika and Harriet came out onto the stoop, shawls clutched around shoulders. The Baroness called out, her voice pitched high. “Is it my husband?”

  “No, madam. It is General Fraser.” Burgoyne leapt from his horse, looking oddly frantic. “A grievous wound—the doctor is on his way. Please be so kind as to make a place for him to rest.”

  “Here?” The Baroness blanched. “Should you not take him to the hospital?”

  “I think not.” Burgoyne shook his head. “The hospital will be overrun in no time.”

  Anne ran back into the dining room and whisked the candelabra from the table. Lucy dragged the chairs over to the side, and in a clatter of metal and glass, they bundled up the place settings into the tablecloth, clearing everything just as the litter bearers barreled through the doorway to deposit Simon Fraser onto the tabletop.

  Burgoyne followed them in and said, “Best prepare. More are on the way.”

  The women all turned to look out the window. A steady parade of soldiers interspersed with wagons, carts, and artillery carriages was straggling in from the west. With a face as white as her bone china, the Baroness grasped Burgoyne by the arm. “My husband?”

  “I couldn’t say, madam.”

  Burgoyne had lost all luster. Bareheaded, his hair was in disarray, with long strands escaping from his usually fastidious queue. The golden braid adorning his slumped shoulders was dusty with dirt and soot, and his handsome, confident features were turned harsh and ashen. He took Harriet Acland by the elbow. “Lady Acland, might we have a word?”

  Burgoyne led the stricken woman to a chair. Gordon Lennox came in, directing Anne, Lucy, and the Baroness to stand back against the wall, making way for litter bearers carrying more wounded inside.

  “Take them to the back rooms,” Lennox ordered. “Push the furnishings aside and clear the floors… Make room for more…”

  The Baroness sank into the corner, her girls running in from their beds in nightdresses to cling to her silk skirts. With trembling hands and features pinched with worry, she reminded Anne of a frightened bird that had toppled from its nest with a broken wing.

  “Lieutenant Lennox,” the Baroness asked, “any word on my husband?”

  “General von Riedesel is with the left flank, and I can only pray his troops have fared better than the Twenty-fourth.”

  Anne could wait no longer. “Did you win the field, Mr. Lennox?”

  “No, we did not.” Gordon closed his eyes for a moment. “Our lads fought valiantly, but we were outnumbered at least three to one. We abandoned the Balcarres and Breymann redoubts to the rebels and lost many of our big guns—all forsaken in retreat.”

  Anne masked the joy that sprung to her heart, and pushed the Patriot victory to the back of her brain. Eyeing the puddle of blood accumulating beneath the dining room table General Fraser lay upon, all she could think was, Do not become entangled here… Get out…

  Lucy whimpered, and touched her husband’s sleeve, torn and bloody at the shoulder. “Gordon, you’re bleeding!”

  “It’s nothing—” Lennox stayed his wife’s panic with a hand on her shoulder. “I’m lucky to be only grazed; the sharpshooters were on a mission to spare no officer. Look at Fraser—and poor Acland—both legs shot out from under him and taken prisoner.” He nodded to the opposite corner, where Harriet Acland sat sobbing in a chair, General Burgoyne down on one knee, her hands in his.

  L
ucy linked elbows with Anne, and pulled her close. “What of Geoffrey? Mrs. Merrick came seeking word…”

  Anne felt her head nodding, but her mind resounded with the words heartless and selfish. She was engulfed by a wave of guilt—so centered on getting away and leaving the enemy encampment far behind, she hadn’t given Geoffrey Pepperell or his well-being a single thought.

  Lennox shrugged. “When Fraser was shot, all semblance and order was lost. Geoffrey’s company became separated…”

  The surgeon just then arrived in a great hubbub, his aide trailing along bearing an instrument chest on his back. Shouting, “Make way!” the surgeon pushed in and took command of the situation at the dining room table. Ordering his aide off to fetch water and rags, he first measured the General’s pulse, then drew the blood-saturated blanket aside. After rattling through his case for a pair of shears, he began to snip away at the General’s bloody clothing and expose the wound. Simon Fraser managed to grasp the surgeon by the hand.

  “Do not conceal a thing from me,” he said. “Must I die?”

  The surgeon nodded, and in a very even tone said, “The bullet has pierced your bowel, General. I’m afraid it is a mortal wound, sir.”

  Fraser let loose of the doctor’s hand and sighed. “My poor wife.”

  Tears were streaming down Lucy’s cheeks as she turned to peer out the window. “There are many, many wagons coming down the road…”

  Lennox kissed his wife. “I must go and see to my men…” He twisted away, disappearing out the door.

  Anne’s mind raced. Concern for Jack, her brother, and her friends on the Patriot side was overwhelmed by the noise of soldiers shouting directives at one another and the pathetic cries of the wounded calling out for mothers and to God. She forced herself to close her ears to all but the single voice clamoring in her head.

  Get out—now!

  The Baroness grabbed Anne by the arm. “Rebel scoundrels! Murderers! To target our officers in such a way—it is uncivilized.”

  Hemmed in between Lucy and the Baroness, Anne sputtered, “I’m going back to the hospital… They must need all hands…” She tugged free and wriggled a way through the crowd, breaking free through the doorway to find Ohaweio stepping up onto the stoop, carrying Geoffrey Pepperell in his arms.