Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence (40 page)

Curiously, the British rear ranks seemed oblivious to what they were doing; the British were totally fixated on the bloody action to their front. They probably thought the men working the guns were British, he concluded.

Drake grabbed Washington’s arm, startling the more senior officer. “William, I think we’ll have a chance to get off two rounds, maybe three, before they realize what’s happening. Then we’ll have to leave the guns and run like the devil.”

Washington nodded, then grinned wolfishly. “Then let’s get started.”

Will was uncertain as to the safety of the guns and decided that only he would fire them. He told the men to step back about fifty yards and lie down. He took a deep breath and touched a burning match to the firing hole. When the powder began to sputter he ran to the second gun and repeated the process.

By the time he’d reached the third, the first and second had fired. He grinned at the fact that he was still alive, and fired the third and fourth. When the dust and smoke cleared, he saw that the rear ranks of the British Army had been shredded. Men were piled up in bloody heaps.

“Don’t gawk,” Washington yelled. “Reload, damn it, reload!”

* * *

Many people said that little Winifred Haskill was still more than a little mad from the abuse she’d received, and they were right. As the day of battle approached, she rarely spoke and rarely ate. She existed and nothing more.

The only persons with whom she did speak were Sarah and the Hessian sergeant, Horst Bahlmann. Bahlmann was the one who had given her a pike and taught her to use it, which pleased her. She longed for the day when she could use it to take revenge on the people who had raped her, murdered her family, and then tried to burn her alive. That the British regulars were not the same as the scum that Girty and Braxton commanded didn’t matter. She had correctly concluded that the British were the paymasters and leaders of people like Braxton. She had also learned that it had been Tarleton who had ordered Braxton out to destroy her people; thus, the British were at the heart of the disaster that had befallen her. Now they would pay.

She held her pike in her small hands and stared at the carnage that was taking place just a few yards in front of her. Behind her, Sarah, Faith, and hundreds of other women also watched. They were shocked and horrified by the sights and sounds and smells before them. The training they’d received now made them think they had been children playing at war. Many had seen death and fighting, but nothing on a scale like this.

The women had held back. They were on the American right flank and could see where the larger British force was pushing the Americans back and lapping over their flank. They were losing and it would be over soon. General Schuyler was with the few hundred older men who were not part of a regular unit. He had dismissed the women’s role as irrelevant.

The women wanted to do something, but were stunned into immobility. At first, Winifred Haskill had been standing with them, but she had gradually moved forward. It was as if she was possessed by a mad desire to get closer to the killing. Sarah had grabbed her arm, but Winifred angrily shook her off. She mumbled something about Bahlmann being in danger and lurched toward the battle.

Winifred recoiled as a wounded American soldier staggered by her and stumbled to the rear. He was screaming soundlessly and trying to hold his intestines inside his ripped stomach. Then, to her utter horror, a Hessian walked out and fell to his knees. The top of his head and much of his face was gone.

Winifred shook like a small tree in a wind. In her mind she saw Bahlmann, her guardian, lying dead before her. She screamed like an animal and ran towards the British. She pointed her pike at a British soldier and rammed it into his chest with all the force her little body could generate. He collapsed in a heap. She tried to pull it out, but couldn’t. Another Redcoat ran his bayonet through her chest and lifted her body into the air, shaking it like a dog before it came free.

At that moment, cannon fire erupted in the British rear. The crowd of American women snapped. Madness of their own overtook them. Primal howls came from hundreds of female throats and they surged at the British.

Now the British flank was being overlapped by the horde of screaming women, who jabbed and hacked at the stunned Redcoats with pikes and axes, or smashed at them with their maces while the British only slowly began to fight back at them. In their insane fury, the women never heard the cannon fire again.

* * *

In the middle of the American ranks, Wilford Benton placed the last load of rocks on his catapult. He had no idea whether he’d hit anything or not, although it seemed more than probable that he had. It was obvious, though, that his efforts had been for naught. The British advance had been staggered but not stopped. Like the tide, or maybe a lava flow, it continued inexorably.

Wilford heard the cries and screams to his right and knew that the women had attacked. “God bless them,” he mumbled, “and God help them.” He pulled the rope that launched the rocks skyward.

“We’re done,” he said to the two men who were helping him. They nodded and grabbed their own pikes and axes. A British soldier had bulled his way through and stood before him. Wilford took his ax and hacked downward onto the surprised Redcoat’s head, splitting it nearly in two.

Someone brushed beside him. It was John Hancock. There was blood on his waistcoat and a loaded pistol in his hand. “Well done,” Hancock said with a smile.

* * *

Major General James Grant whirled about, “What the devil is happening, Danforth?”

Danforth didn’t know either. In their front and to their left came the sound of screaming banshees, while cannon boomed to their rear. All around them, soldiers looked about in confusion. The attack was stalling. Again. Grant grabbed soldiers and hollered for them to press forward. His efforts began to work as the advance resumed.

Then General Grant stopped moving. He stood as if at attention, but his sword slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. Danforth was at his side and turned to see why his general was silent. He gasped and gagged. He had seen horrors this day but nothing like this. A large rock protruded from the middle of Grant’s skull, just above the bridge of his nose. Danforth dropped to his knees and vomited, while Grant simply stood. His eyes were blank and his jaw moved sporadically, but with no sound coming forth. Other soldiers saw the unnatural creature that Grant had become and recoiled.

* * *

Tommy Baker was twenty-two and had been a British soldier for seven years. He knew that sometime in the dark and best forgotten past he’d had an ancestor who’d been a baker. Lucky man, he’d often thought. At least the bastard had likely been able to eat what he made and stayed warm by his ovens.

But not so for Tommy Baker. He’d spent his early years always hungry, growing up in a poor and dying village a few miles north of London. He had been only thirteen when his father pushed him out of the house and informed him that he was on his own. Dear old dad had too many other mouths to feed. His mother had looked on him sadly and turned away.

He’d tried odd jobs but wasn’t much good at anything. He was too small and thin for farm labor and he soon wandered into the bustling city of London where he’d tried his hand at the infernal places called factories that were sprouting up all over the city. They were either stinking smoky horrors or places where white-faced women worked at giant looms while he lugged their materials back and forth. The lucky ones gave sex to the owners in return for food and better conditions. A couple of foremen had squeezed his arm and suggested how he could earn money and favor. He hated them all.

He’d quickly lost a series of jobs and tried begging. When that didn’t work, he tried stealing and was caught and sent to prison where a recruiter for the army found him. Tommy was given a choice: enlist or be hanged for the capital crime of stealing a loaf of bread. Tommy thought it over for about two seconds and made his mark on the enlistment papers. He didn’t even get the enlistment bonus called the King’s Shilling. The recruiting sergeant said he needed that to bribe the guards. Tommy thought the bastard sergeant had kept it, but what the hell.

Tommy quickly found that he loved the army. It fed him, and his body filled out so that he no longer looked like a starved dog. It clothed him, trained and disciplined him, and gave him a musket he could use to shoot at people. Best of all, they paid him. It wasn’t much but it was more money then he’d ever had in his life. He soon found himself trusted and respected and after a few years was promoted to corporal.

Tommy served in the colonies and had been in combat during the last days of the insurrection, which made him a battle-hardened veteran. He didn’t much like being shot at but it was part of his duty.

The trek from New York to Detroit had been pleasant enough, and even educational. He was impressed with the vastness of the Americas. But the journey from Detroit to what the rebels called Fort Washington had been an ordeal. He’d been shot at by unknown assassins who had waited like snakes in the grass. He’d lost a good friend who’d taken a crossbow bolt in the throat. He’d raged for days. Who killed with a crossbow? Savages, that’s who.

He hated the rebels for the way they fought and he hated them for rebelling against his king who had given him so much. Thus, Tommy Baker and the thousands of others like him couldn’t wait to get their hands on those rebels and destroy them.

Tommy had exulted when he’d first seen the defensive earthworks and the enemy soldiers behind them. They weren’t much at all and the bastards couldn’t run and hide anymore.

And when the army was formed up for the grand assault, he’d cheered when General Grant took a place of honor with them. Grant was a fat old bastard, but he was a tough one and he cared for his men. Grant told them the rebels would collapse under the weight of the British assault and run like they always did. They all thought that Grant was clearly the best of the British generals. Tarleton was a lunatic who might just be a coward to boot, and Arnold was a turncoat, which said it all. Burgoyne had already lost one army and that too said more than anybody wanted to think about. No, Grant would lead them to victory and glory.

But it wasn’t happening that way. Instead of running, the rebels continued to fight with a maniacal desperation that neither Tommy nor the other Redcoats had ever seen. Tommy and his comrades managed to bull their way over the embankment but they’d paid a heavy price. He found himself stepping over and on to piles of bodies. Some wore the homespun clothing of the rebels, but so many wore the king’s red that it was dismaying.

Tommy had started about a third of the way back in the phalanx, whatever that word meant, and didn’t regret at all not being nearer the front. Many of his comrades were dying up there and they’d all been horrified when the series of explosions had rocked them on their heels with debris and pieces of flesh landing on them.

They’d been shocked by the amazing rate of fire that the rebels had sustained and the accuracy with which they’d shot. Then came the showers of rocks that threatened to break bones and bash in skulls. Still, the attack continued and Tommy and his mates were slowly winning. They were tired, angry, and frustrated, but they were winning. The American bastards would pay in their own damned blood for this day.

Finally, he’d reached the front and it was his turn to fight. He didn’t even give a thought to the fact that it was because everyone who’d started out in front of him was dead or wounded. He felt release and lunged with his bayonet only to have it parried by what he quickly realized was a well-trained Hessian wearing the remnants of his old uniform.

No matter. Tommy was British and that meant he was better than anyone. He was also fresh and the Hessian was tired. He skewered the Hessian who screamed and collapsed, and looked for another. He was distracted by the sounds of screaming to his left. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that hundreds of women had descended on the British lines and were hacking and stabbing with axes and pikes. Bloody fucking hell! Was he supposed to fight women? Damned if he wouldn’t if one of the bitchy American whores came at him with a pike.

Behind him, he heard cannon fire followed by screams from within the phalanx. More bloody hell, he thought. Had the rebels gotten behind them? This was not right. He began to look around nervously. He laughed harshly. No problem, he decided. General Grant would fix it all in a minute. In the meantime, he had to keep his thoughts to the front.

“Grant’s dead,” a voice hollered and it was picked up by others. “Grant’s dead,” echoed throughout the phalanx.

“Fuck me,” Tommy said and a soldier beside him nodded agreement.

Throughout the attack there had been physical pressure from behind him, pushing Tommy and the others forward, just as he had pushed others ahead of him through the defenses and up over the American works.

Now there was no pressure. He stepped back, astonished that he could do so. Others were doing the same thing. A gap of a few yards appeared between the ragged, exhausted American remnants and the British. It grew larger. A woman appeared in front of him, but just out of the reach of his bayonet. She’d been cut on her shoulder and was covered with blood. She was screaming at him like an animal and she held a pike like she knew what she was doing. What the bloody goddamn fucking hell was going on? Other rebels, men and women, were kneeling, either wounded or just plain exhausted.

He backed up a couple of more steps and turned around. British soldiers were falling back. All around him they were turning and retreating. Some were beginning to run. Grant was dead. It was over.

Tommy Baker felt naked. His musket was unloaded as some fool had decided that only the first couple of ranks would carry loaded weapons lest they shoot their comrades in the back.

He took a few more steps backward, signaled to the men beside him, turned, and began to trot to the rear. He fumbled to load his damn musket.

* * *

“Grandfather, the red-coated soldiers are retreating. What is your wish?”