Brave Enemies (35 page)

The red dragoons turned aside off the field and the soldiers behind them reached to their sides and pulled out long knives. They did it all at the same time: they were fixing bayonets. The blades flashed in the sun like sabers.

I don't know which of us fired first. It all happened so fast. Somebody fired at the dragoons as they galloped off to the side, and the British infantry stepped forward in the orange sunlight. All up and down our line men hollered. I think the first shots came from the left, on the Georgia side of the road. Or it might have been some of us, Jenkins and Roberts, or even T. R. There was one shot and then another. A horse stumbled and fell.

My own gun was not even aimed. I couldn't make myself sight down the barrel. I was too scared and I was shaking. I looked over at Gaither and T. R., but they were busy aiming. I looked around to see where Cox was.

“Aim, you fool,” Gudger screamed.

“Shoot the epaulet men,” the general shouted.

I looked down the barrel of the rifle and it shook even though it leaned against the tree. Guns were firing all around me and the air smelled like smoke. The dragoons were still far enough away so their caps looked like bears' heads. You must shoot for John and for the sake of your baby, I said to myself. Don't let them know you are a girl. And don't let Gaither and T. R. and Captain Cox down.

“Two shots and fall back,” the general hollered.

Off to the side three horses fell and the dragoons yelled when they hit the ground. One rider stumbled to his feet and raised his saber. His hat had slid crooked but was held by the strap under his chin. The bead on my rifle trembled as I trained it on the dragoon's head. I couldn't really aim, I was shaking so badly, and I didn't think to squeeze the trigger or steady the barrel by pressing it harder against the tree. I jerked the trigger and the dragoon fell. Whether it was my shot that hit him or somebody else's I couldn't tell.

“Reload, you stupid heifer!” Gudger shouted.

“Give them one more shot,” Captain Cox yelled.

Major McDowell was riding behind us. “Hit the epaulets,” he barked.

I lifted my powder horn, but my hand was trembling so I couldn't touch the point to the end of the barrel. The soldiers were coming on and hollering like they'd been stung by hornets and bitten by mad dogs. I didn't think I could reload before they were at me. My fingers fumbled on the cold shot in the pouch. I pulled out a ball and it squirted right out of my hand into the grass. I pinched another one tight in a patch till it squeezed into the end of the barrel.

By the time I got the bullet and patch in, the dragoons had gone into the woods on the right. But through the smoke I saw the ranks of soldiers coming closer out of the sun. Light flashed on their shoulders and caps. Old Morgan had said we didn't have to stand up to the bayonets.

“Fire, you fools,” Gudger hollered.

“Eeiieehh!” I yelled, trying to give the Indian war whoop again. But it didn't come out right. I just sounded scared.

I crammed the bullet and patch into the barrel and pushed them down with the ramrod. My hands shook and I wasn't even sure they were pushed in all the way. I pulled the rod out of the barrel, but couldn't guide it back into its rings.

The redcoats were getting closer. Their buckles and badges flashed in the sun, and their bayonets reached out toward us. Their gorgets sparkled around the officers' necks. I raised the rifle and leaned it against the oak again, and tried to stop my hand from jerking. I had to fire one more shot before I could run back to the second line. And I had to aim too.

I pointed the barrel at the man in front with the bayonet reaching out toward me. I brought the bead right on him.

At the instant I touched the trigger and the rifle kicked and smoke boiled out of the barrel, the man wearing epaulets raised his head and stopped. A man behind him fell. I'd missed the officer and hit the other man. They all stopped and the row in front knelt down.

The man that had fallen was screaming with pain, but nobody paid him any mind. He crawled a little way and stopped. He put his hands to his chest and it looked like worms of blood squeezed through his fingers. The man searched through his clothes. I didn't know what he was looking for. The other soldiers were busy kneeling and aiming, and they didn't pay him any mind.

From the right I heard one of the officers yell, “No quarter!” It must have been Tarleton himself. “No quarter for traitors,” he said.

The man on the grass raised himself so he was sitting. His coat was covered with wetness. His cap had fallen off and he didn't look any bigger than us on the ground.

“Tarleton's quarter,” Gudger shouted, and shot the wounded man.

I paused for an instant, watching the wounded man fall back into the grass and jerk. Then I grabbed up my ramrod and bag and rifle and started running back. But I looked back in time to see the whole line of redcoats fire a volley. All their ranks belched smoke and the air above my head and around my ears screamed with bullets. There was a terrible
roar, like awful thunder. The sound of the volley scared me more than anything else had. The sky went crashing behind me and over me. The air broke apart and it sounded like a swarm of hornets dropped on my head. And then the drum started playing again.

The whole field was covered with smoke, but when I looked back I saw the redcoats walking steady out of the fog. Their bayonets stuck out in front of them like they were pushing against the air. And out of the corner of my eye I saw something else. Between two companies of the redcoats I saw two little groups of men in blue-and-red coats carrying two cannons forward. They lifted them on rods and brought them ahead, then set them up to fire.

The brass barrels shined like they were gold. First one blew out smoke and jumped back and then the other. They jumped in the air like they were on springs.

“Watch out for the grasshoppers,” Captain Cox yelled, and I saw that he meant the little cannons. The shots hissed, going over my head.

The men in blue and red worked fast around the right cannon like they were pieces of a clock. One poured in powder, one pushed in the wadding and ball, and one rammed it down with a pole. Another man stood there with a sparking match on a stick to touch it to the vent. But first he stuck a pin in the vent to make sure it wasn't clogged up. As soon as the cannon jumped back they went through it all again. The shots went way over our heads.

But even as I glanced back, I was running and stumbling. I was driven toward Pickens's line like I'd been carried by a flash flood. The ground was tilted away and I was running up a hill toward the South Carolina volunteers. I was half falling and half climbing. I couldn't believe I was there, and yet I was there, and I had fired at the enemy. I'd tried to kill a man.

As I ran I put the ramrod in the same hand that held the rifle and reached for the powder horn. It was clumsy to try to run and pour powder into the barrel. I expected to be shot from behind. I tried to swerve
and zigzag, the way Cox had told us to do, but it was all I could do to keep from falling.

Pickens's men were partly hidden by trees. But there weren't enough trees for all of us to take cover behind. Some men knelt on the ground, and where there was a hickory log, ten men lay behind it with their rifles aimed straight ahead. They were older men than Cox's company. Some were dressed like gentlemen and some were barefoot and wore linsey or buckskin.

I got to their line and wheeled around. There was no cover, for every tree and bush was taken. I stood beside two big redheaded fellows that looked like twins. Gaither was already in the line, but I didn't see T. R. I was so out of breath I could hardly stand up.

A man on a white horse rode out in front of the line. He wore a light blue coat and he had the thinnest, longest face you ever saw, the saddest face in creation, and his eyes seemed to burn at you from under heavy brows. I thought it must be Col. Andrew Pickens whom we had heard so much about.

“Hold your fire until they're in killing distance,” the colonel shouted. His face was so thin it looked like it had been stretched. His whole body appeared to have been pulled out long. He sat tall on the white horse. It was a long-legged horse and he towered above us. The sun was behind the colonel and threw his shadow on us as he rode to and fro.

The sun was above Thicketty Mountain now and in my left eye, when I turned toward the colonel. He spoke calmer than the general. “Fire twice and pull back around the Maryland line,” he said.

He sounded so calm and dignified. He pointed at the advancing British and then rode behind our line.

I looked around to see where the Old Wagoner was. Our line stretched way across the field to the woods on the other side of the Green River Road. There were officers on horses riding along behind us talking to the men. But I didn't see the general. Way behind us stretched the line of the Maryland and Delaware regulars and the Virginia militia. They had a
flag and the little boy was playing his drum. Their uniforms looked bright in the sun. Their officers held long sticks that looked like spears, called spontoons I'd heard. The sticks had blades at the end shaped like fish that sparkled in the sun. Old Morgan was talking to the leaders back there. I guess he was talking to Colonel Howard. He waved his arms and pointed to us, and swung around and pointed to the left.

I followed where the general was pointing and saw the cavalry of Colonel Washington. There were dozens of men on horses hidden mostly by the hill and the clump of pine trees. I wondered if they'd let us take the brunt of the fighting and come out when it was all over. The general pointed toward the horsemen and he pointed toward us. I couldn't tell a thing from the way he was pointing.

I cocked my rifle and turned back toward the front. My hands weren't shaking so much like they had been. The enemy drums beat fast as my heart. It was hard to see their fancy uniforms through all the smoke. Way off to the right I saw the Highlanders with their plaid capes and their white pants coming down to their boots.

“Steady on,” a voice among the Tories kept hollering. “Steady on.”

The little cannons between the legions fired, and after every puff of smoke you could hear the shot go over like a flock of pigeons. They must have fired grapeshot or buckshot. But they shot way over us, and I looked back and saw dirt kick up and a man fall in the Maryland line. Maybe the grasshoppers were just aimed at the Continentals. The artillerymen didn't think the volunteers were worth bothering with. Or maybe they thought the bayonets would take care of us.

As the Tories came closer, I saw something move in the grass ahead of them. Was it some animal trapped between the lines? The broom sedge shook and then a head raised up. It was a soldier that was wounded and crawling back to Pickens's line. He was hurt so he couldn't use his legs, but pulled himself by his elbows. He looked at the British getting closer and then heaved himself toward us. I thought it was a man from our company.

“Come on,” several hollered to him from our line. I yelled too.

He held his rifle and worked himself forward on his elbows. His face looked white as a lace handkerchief, but his hunting shirt was covered with blood and dirt. The redcoats stepped forward like they didn't even see him. They were coming up behind him. Their bayonets pointed right at us. There were so many it was like a row of corn.

“Come on, Roberts,” somebody yelled.

Roberts pulled himself forward like a worm inching itself through the grass. He strained and heaved. I saw he wasn't going to make it and there was nothing we could do.

The British drums beat like the rattle of doom. “Steady on, steady on,” the officer called out.

“Take aim,” Colonel Pickens called, “but let them get in killing distance.”

My hands were shaking again so I could hardly hold the rifle. There wasn't any tree to lean on. Only thing to steady the barrel was my left hand. The redcoats kept moving and the end of my rifle jerked back and forth. It didn't seem like I could get it aimed.

Roberts dug his elbows into the grass and peavines like he was swimming. I could see the sweat streaming down his face, or maybe it was tears.

“Don't shoot till they're closer,” Colonel Pickens yelled.

It looked as if the British were going to step right over Roberts. They walked all together to the drumbeat, and didn't seem to notice him. When the redcoats were right over him Roberts rolled around and tried to point his rifle at the closest soldier. But before he could raise the long barrel a redcoat lowered his own gun and drove the bayonet through Roberts's chest. It all happened in a second, but I saw the look on Roberts's face as the blade went in. It was like he was surprised, and then blood leapt from his mouth in a red tongue.

I lowered my gun to the left and shot the redcoat that had killed Roberts. Several others fired at the same time.

“Wait!” Colonel Pickens snapped. But it was too late. Boys all along the line started firing. “Pop pop pop,” went the guns. It sounded like the top of the sky was blowing off.

“Reload!” Colonel Pickens shouted. I saw the ramrod was gone from my rifle. The rings under the barrel were empty. I'd lost it after reloading while running back. And then I saw the Tory line had stopped in front of us. Smoke from our guns made it hard to see them. They threw shadows on the drifting smoke, like an army of dark ghosts reaching toward us.

“Fire!” a voice barked.

And from the line in front of us, all the way across the field, white smoke puffed from the muskets. It looked like smoke was coming from their bayonets. The field itself, and the air too, turned to fire. And soon as I saw the smoke whoosh out, a terrible noise came at us. It was the worst racket I'd ever heard. All the thunder in the world put together wouldn't equal the roar of muskets in our faces. I was hit in the eyes by the roar and felt like crying. The bullets were so close on every side I didn't know which way to run. The musket smoke rose in a wall of white and rolled across the field blotting the sun. It was a storm covering us.