“Why not?” He narrowed his eyes.
“Eh . . .”
“’Tweren’t offered?”
“Something like that,” I said, and the grin I’d been holding back split my cheeks. I had not had this much fun since I’d beat Phineas in that footrace.
Beebe’s shoulders fell and his chin hit his chest.
“Nor have I. But I dream of it. I heard it’s like a bit of heaven,” he said, wistful.
I grunted, my need to laugh warring with my sincere sympathy. He seemed so sad.
“That’s what scares me,” he added.
I stiffened, certain he was going to confess something about coupling I didn’t want to hear. I suppose I deserved that.
“I’m afraid I’ll die without ever finding out,” he mourned. “I’ve had a funny feeling all day.”
My mirth fled, and the demon on my shoulder vanished. I looked up at the sky and searched the woods around us, trying to summon words that might comfort him. It was odd. Terror informed my every action, but it was not the same dread felt by those around me. Oh, I shared my comrades fears as well—cowardice, death, suffering—but I was more afraid of discovery than of anything else, and it served as a huge distraction from all the other horrors. In fact, I suppose it made me bolder than I might have otherwise been.
“If you die . . . you won’t just experience a little bit of heaven. It’ll be heaven itself. Maybe you won’t need a taste because everything will be so good.”
“Do you believe that?” He seemed doubtful . . . and hopeful too.
“I’m not sure what I believe. But whoever made this world understands beauty and love. All you have to do is look around to feel it. And I don’t think that ever ends. ‘Whatever God does, it is forever,’” I quoted. “I imagine death is like moving into a new season.”
“That’s in Ecclesiastes, right?” he asked.
I nodded. “‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.’”
“Yeah. I guess that might be true. You gonna be a reverend when this is over? You could be with all the Bible quotin’ you do.”
I considered that, picturing myself standing at the lectern in Reverend Conant’s church. Somehow I thought it might be harder to be a man of God than a man of war, and in a few years, I wouldn’t be able to pass for a beardless boy. But to be a reverend appealed to me.
“I would like that,” I confessed.
“Then you better stop your whorish ways,” he whispered, grinning. “No more sampling from the apple dumplin’ shop.”
I blinked, not sure I understood, and then I remembered what I’d told him.
He sighed, but his rancor was gone. “Thanks for the talk, Robbie. Don’t let the fish take your wanker while you wash. We caught a few this afternoon. They were bitin’.”
I choked, and he chuckled, his humor restored. I suppose I had one advantage: I had no fear of losing my wanker.
“See that Noble and Jimmy are awake. They’ve got the next shift,” Beebe added. “I’m watch captain until we’re back at the Point.”
Dawn was coming, and I wouldn’t have long before the encampment was stirring, though the plan to sit tight for another day would delay their rise. Many of us had slept no more than winks and nods in several days. The morning would be slow. Still, I didn’t want an audience, and sitting by the fire to dry my clothes would be a whole lot more pleasant if the sun wasn’t yet up.
I shook Jimmy awake and then picked my way through the sleeping men until I found Noble. He was already up, pulling on his boots, and I watched him pick up his musket, snap his bayonet into place, and trudge to his picket point on the riverside. Jimmy was slower to follow, but once he had exited the encampment, I retrieved my pack and my blanket—it needed washing too—and headed toward the creek. I needed sleep, but I couldn’t go another day without a bath.
The creek was only chest high at its deepest point and maybe ten feet wide. It emptied into the Hudson about twenty rods to the west, if that, but it made for a nice bathing spot not far from camp. I shucked off my boots, found my soap, and waded a few feet in before sinking to my knees, submerging myself to my neck. I began wringing and washing, slipping my hand beneath my billowing shirt and my loosened breeches to scour my underarms and my nether regions before attacking my clothes. The band around my breasts remained tight and tied; the proximity of my company and the dwindling time forced me to wash it while I wore it, running the soap over the outside, as I’d done a dozen times before. If I was able, I would exchange it for the dry one in my pack. If I wasn’t, I would manage.