It was an old game we had played, the Thomas brothers and I. We had a target on the barn wall and rings to tally our points, and we’d hurled the axe a thousand times. I’d excelled at the game. I excelled at every game. But this was different.
The man’s eyes widened and his lips pursed, like he said “woman,” though I couldn’t be sure.
His eyes were bulging and his leather helmet hung from the strap beneath his chin. Curls clung to his forehead and his nape. He tried to lift his sword, but his arms did not cooperate. His horse stopped obligingly, its head tossing, feet stomping, and I reached up for the handle of my hatchet.
Then sound and scent—oh dear God, the scent—returned and General Paterson was running toward me, his mouth moving and his shirttails flapping, but I couldn’t hear, and I needed my hatchet.
It came free like the man was simply a stump, a stump with crimson sap. The clutch felt exactly the same, but the sound was a squelch and a squish, and suddenly I could hear again. I could hear and smell and see and feel, but none of it was real. It’s a game. It’s just like a game.
Jeremiah had played with little toy soldiers made with lead or wood and carefully covered in paint. He’d knocked them down with clods of earth or a swath of his hands, like God on high. The second man I killed slid boneless to the ground, just like the first, and I put my hatchet back on my belt, as unfeeling as a child at play.
“Shurtliff!” General Paterson was blood-spattered, and he had a musket in each hand. He tossed the one in his right like he expected me to catch it. Somehow I did, though my palms were slick with gore.
“Get on that horse, and go for Colonel Sproat. Tell him we’re pinned in here, and they’re mowing us down.”
I nodded, swinging up onto the dead man’s horse. The saddle was warm where he’d been and soaked in his blood. I almost slid right off the other side. Captain Webb was running for a line of trees to the north. Those who could followed at his heels, those who could not were left behind. The riders had come from the east, the Hudson was west, and Colonel Sproat was south, over the creek. If the band had raided him first, there would be no one to summon or warn, but we’d have heard it and been warned ourselves.
“Go, Shurtliff!” General Paterson roared, and I dug my bare toes into the horse’s sides.
DeLancey’s men made a devastating pass through the camp and wheeled around and came back again, firing on the fleeing soldiers who were barely awake, only partially dressed, and shooting over their shoulders as they ran. Bullets whizzed by my head, and they were more likely than not from my compatriots. The horse beneath me shot forward, as eager as I to escape the melee.
I didn’t feel the ride, nor could I remember it when it was all over. It was like sleep without dreaming, time without meaning, and none of it was real.
I had a jolt of awareness when I saw the campfires and heard the cries. Dawn was breaking, and Sproat’s encampment was stirring. I almost expected to be fired upon, racing full out with no blue to identify me, no company beside me, and riding the enemy’s horse.
A warning shot went up, and I knew I’d been seen. I didn’t slow, but I started shouting, making my identity known.
“I’m Private Shurtliff, Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, Captain Webb’s company. We’ve been hit by DeLancey and are pinned down half a mile north.”
They had heard the gunfire and were already assembled, Colonel Sproat standing tall among them. I reined the horse in and repeated myself, panting between words.
“How many?” Colonel Sproat asked me, his hand on my reins.
“Our detachment is maybe fifty men. Half of the company moved out last night. General Paterson is camped with us. He sent me. It was dark, and they surprised us, but I’d say the attacking party was at least a hundred men, all on horseback.”
I was interrupted by a sentinel, running up from the river toward his comrades.
“Colonel Sproat, British reinforcements in boats have been spotted on the Hudson, headed north,” he yelled. “At least a full company. Maybe more.”
“I have to go back,” I shouted. “They’ll be slaughtered.”
“We need more men,” Sproat said, shaking his head and keeping his hand on my reins. “Keep going south for four miles,” he told me. “There are always a few detachments at Dobbs Ferry and a French field hospital too. Tell them to hurry.”
I nodded and spurred the horse forward, afraid it was already too late. I heard Sproat rallying his men behind me.