“Would we have to fight?” someone exclaimed in shock.
“Are you afraid to?” Sarah snapped back, causing a momentary uproar.
Abigail Adams called for calm and, after a moment, got it. “I am not proposing that we women actually fight; however, I am suggesting that those of us who feel we can should be prepared to fight. After all, didn’t a few of you say that you’d rather die than be captured, raped, and enslaved? Well, wouldn’t you rather take a few Redcoats with you before death, or were you contemplating heroic suicide?”
The heavyset mistress of General von Steuben rose. “I want to kill the bastards. Any British soldier who thinks he can lie on top of me without my permission will be a dead one.”
Abigail nodded and suppressed a smile. “Good. No matter what happens, we will be terribly close to the fighting, so I am proposing that we involve ourselves in it as much as possible without actually trying to join the ranks of soldiers.”
“But aren’t there women already masquerading as soldiers?” the wife of a colonel asked.
“Likely a few,” Abigail admitted, “although their presence is not officially admitted and their numbers not actually known. However, there have been incidents of women joining the ranks and actually fighting and even becoming casualties, which is how their gender was discovered. And that brings us back to the point. In order to help our men, and help ourselves, we must not just sit idly by while the battle that shapes our futures takes place a few hundred yards away from us.”
Catherine Greene, the general’s widow, spoke up. Grief was still etched in her still lovely face. “What do you want us to do? While there are women here in camp, the men far outnumber us, which means our impact would be small.”
Again Abigail Adams nodded and smiled, this time knowingly. “Of course you are correct. Our actual numbers are fairly small, but, if we are clever, our impact could be enormous. As to what I want from you, perhaps it is what you want from yourselves. I wish you to discuss this with the others of our fairer and so-called weaker sex and find out how many will help. When I have a good number, I will present it to Doctor Franklin and he will confront the generals.”
Daniel Morgan’s wife, also named Abigail, rose and glared at Abigail Adams. “Just one thing, Mistress Adams.”
“Yes?”
“Fairer and weaker sex my ass.”
* * *
Lieutenant Owen Wells rested his rifle against a log and looked out across the stark and snow-covered meadow before him. He and his men were hidden just inside the tree line and had been so for almost a week.
It wasn’t warm yet, but the sun was shining brightly and there was the hint of spring in the air. There might still be snow and rain and ice, but it would not last very long. Springtime was good, a time of renewal with colors that were bright and clean. Spring was also bad, since it meant that the day of reckoning with the British war machine was coming closer.
That was why Owen, Sergeant Barley, and the twenty-odd men in his command waited along the trail a few miles outside of Fort Washington. Someday the nicer weather would bring unwelcome visitors, thousands of them, but not this day. They had another reason for waiting.
“What’re you thinking of, Lieutenant?” Barley asked.
Owen was jolted back to reality. “My duty, of course.”
Barley laughed and looked around. None of the other soldiers was close enough to overhear them. “Bullshit. You were thinking of your girlfriend, weren’t you?”
Actually, Owen had been thinking of Faith’s bare breast and the taste of her nipple on his lips and the feel of her hand on his swollen manhood. But he’d be damned if he’d admit all that to Barley, even if the two of them were close friends, Owen decided it was time to change the subject.
“Do you see the irony in our being here? Wasn’t this the place where you found Major Drake and me fumbling our way through the woods?”
“Yes, and clumsier than hell you were, by God. We heard you coming for miles.”
“That’s because we were hungry and tired, otherwise we’d have been as silent as a snake, damn you.”
Owen shifted and scratched where a twig was digging into his leg, “Do you ever think that it’s wrong for me to be in charge of you when it was the other way around for a while?”
Barley spat on the ground. “Naw. I figure it’s God’s will or something like that. Besides, you can read and write orders while I’d have a hell of a time with them.”
Owen knew better but didn’t argue. Barley could read and write quite as well as the next man. What he didn’t want was responsibility. Almost everyone in the colonies could read and write, even though many rarely read books except for the Bible. Newspapers and pamphlets were other sources of information. This made it much better than England, where so many were illiterate. Owen wondered why the British considered the colonists their inferiors when the average colonist-at least the ones he’d seen-were much better educated, along with being bigger, stronger, and healthier.
“I still don’t understand why we’re out here,” muttered Barley. “If we’re supposed to protect these people, why don’t we meet them farther out?”
Owen rolled his eyes. They’d been over this before. “Because this is where the trails converge. If we went out to meet them we could miss them by a few feet and never know it.”
“I suppose,” Barley grumbled. “But what if they get caught out there while we’re waiting here?”
“Then they’re totally and tragically out of luck. Don’t forget, though, we’re not the only patrol out looking for them.”
“And one’s a Jew? I’ve never seen a Jew.”
Owen couldn’t resist. “They’re easy to spot. They’re big and fat and have large horns on the side of their heads and their bodies are covered with long greasy fur. And those are the female Jews and all they want to do is screw your brains out, which, in your case, won’t take all that long.”
“Fuck you, Lieutenant. But seriously, didn’t they kill Jesus?”
“Not lately, Sergeant, and I do mean that seriously.”
“Seriously, I never met any Jews. Have you?”
“Some. Mainly traveling peddlers back in Wales. They were like everyone else, just people trying to make a living, although I admit they were a little strange. I did very briefly see a few wealthy ones in New York, but they dealt with officers and not men like me.”
He didn’t need to add that it was the only time the Royal Navy had let him off the ship.
“Hasn’t been many people coming in lately, and don’t tell me it’s because of the winter,” Barley said.
The phenomenon had been noted by others. What had been a steady trickle of people seeking sanctuary in Fort Washington had just about dried up. The reason was obvious. Who wanted to go to a place that might be destroyed in a few months with everybody in and around it either killed or enslaved? In effect, everyone who really wanted to go to Fort Washington was already there. The people they were looking for were the exception.
“Movement in the woods,” one of the sharper-eyed soldiers announced and they all strained their eyes to see. Owen had a small telescope and finally caught a patch of moving color.
“I see them.” He paused as the picture became clearer. “I count five.”
“So do I,” said Barley. “The small one might be a woman.”
And that would make the numbers just about right, Owen thought. Tallmadge had said there wouldn’t be more than a handful and one of them might be a woman. Behind them, Owen could see a line of small horse-drawn carts laden with store goods.
The people stepped carefully into the meadow and looked around nervously. They were fully exposed and it made them uncomfortable. Owen saw a couple of muskets, but the little group was decidedly lacking in firepower. One man was older and overweight. Two of the younger men were helping him. The smaller one removed a cap and revealed blond hair that had been chopped short. Obviously, she was the woman Tallmadge had mentioned.