I’d been at it for mere minutes, frenzied as always, scanning the darkness for signs of unwanted company while keeping an eye on Jimmy, who sat watch farther up the creek. He’d never once even looked my way, though I’d made certain there was nothing for him to see. He was seated with his back to me, and from the way he was slumped, I doubted he was seeing anything but the backs of his eyelids.
I’d just finished rinsing the soap from my hair when a shifting and reshaping of the darkness, a ways beyond Jimmy’s picket point, caught my eye. As I watched, riders began to converge, moving along the opposite side of the creek. The trees cast long shadows that gave them cover, but there were many of them, their pistols were drawn, and they were not Continentals. I tucked my lips over a shriek and inched back until my shoulders touched the bank, tying my strings beneath the water, terrified that any movement would draw their eyes toward me and equally terrified that I’d lose my breeches when I stood. Jimmy’s head stayed bowed and his back remained bent.
I wriggled up the bank behind the small outcropping of rocks I’d chosen specifically to give me some privacy, though I’d never envisioned needing cover like this. I put the straps of my powder horn and my cartridge box over my head, notched my belt, and aimed my musket at the rider in the center. Discharging my weapon would be the fastest way to alert my detachment, but I wasn’t going to waste a bullet, and it might make them scatter, knowing they’d lost the element of surprise. I had doubts about my actions for half a second and then discarded them. Their coats were red, their movements stealthy, and their intentions clear. Images of Colonel Greene being dragged from his tent and slaughtered cemented my resolve. These were the tactics of DeLancey’s Brigade, and they weren’t behind our lines to negotiate a treaty.
I pulled the trigger and I think a man fell, though I didn’t stop to make sure, surging up from the bank and racing toward the encampment, separated from the marauders by trees and sheer terror. Bullets began to whiz and crack above my head, and I didn’t stop to pull on my boots or shrug into my coat. My wet clothes clung and my hair stuck to my cheeks and dripped down my back, but not one of the Thomas brothers could have outrun me in that moment.
12
SELF-EVIDENT
As I broke through the trees into the encampment, men were coming to their feet, weapons in hand, in various states of dress, their confusion evident.
“DeLancey’s coming,” I shouted, though I wasn’t certain who led the assault. “We’re under attack.”
Captain Webb was out of his tent, and Noble was running toward me from his picket on the Hudson side of our encampment. I caught a glimpse of General Paterson, gun in hand, his shirt hanging loose about his breeches, no boots, no stockings. He was shouting out orders, urging the men to move north to the tree line, and then his voice and his figure were swallowed up by the cavalry that descended upon us.
The flames of small campfires illuminated the hooves of flying horses and the legs of panicked men, but the crescent moon did nothing to alleviate the chaos or light the way to safety. I needed to reload. That was the only thought in my head, and I went through the motions, intent on my task.
“Shurtliff!” Noble yelled. “Get down. Get down!”
He was beside me, thrusting his bayonet left and right, trying to skewer a rider and keep them from hewing us down, and then his head snapped back and his arms flew wide, the back of his right hand catching me across my cheek and nose and laying me flat. I scrambled up immediately, my ears ringing and my now-loaded musket still clutched in my hands. The back of Noble’s head was a puddle of blood.
“Noble?” I shouted, rolling him over. His face was gone.
“Shurtliff!” Someone was screaming my name, and another wave of riders broke through the trees. Too close to aim, too close to run. I simply thrust upward with all my might, and felt the jarring thunk and sickening slide of resistance as my bayonet met flesh. The action tore my musket from my arms and snapped the clasp that kept the bayonet secured. The rider fell back, end over end, and landed at my feet, his face planted in the earth, his buttocks in the air like he’d stopped to pray but died instead.
Someone swung at me, a broadsword that whistled and hissed through the air and sliced my sleeve from shoulder to cuff. Again, I didn’t think. I didn’t scream or even look to see who sought to kill me. My musket was gone, my bayonet too, so I reached for the hatchet on my belt. With both hands I sent it flying, end over end, toward the wielder of the sword. I didn’t think at all, I just heaved and watched it strike.