Ch. 23: The Virginia Riflemen

Chapter Twenty Three

I crawled across the grass with as much stealth as I could muster in the early morning hour. I had managed to reach four of the five bodies lying on the field and collect their weapons, it was only the last man I needed to reach now. The man who had been the first to fall. Voices could be heard across the field where the last of my men had fallen, from the sounds of it, they were all dead now, and the enemy were raiding the bodies for supplies. If they could do it, so could I.
The private was lying on his side, as if asleep, aside from the gaping hole in his throat of course, and stared off with wide eyes of surprise. I couldn't tell in the light, but I thought his eyes looked blue. Taking hold of the musket that was lying across his back, I cut the strap with my dirk and pulled it gently from the body. Glancing over to the forest line as I pulled, I caught sight of a man walking towards the meadow. I dropped the gun and my head and became a dead shadow on the pale field awash in moonlight.
"Hey, boys! More target practice!" I heard him call to his fellow colonists in a thick American accent that sounded like a lazy Irishman who forgot to pronounce his R's. Almost an instant later a shot rang out across the field and thumped into the body beside me. It wasn't long before other voices joined his at the tree line and were trying for the raised body on its side next to me, who was flat on my stomach. My head was turned towards them and I watched as a handful of them fired. It then hit me, not a bullet of course, but a realization of just how good these men were at shooting. I was sure it helped that they all carried rifles, but even with a musket I bet they could have easily matched me in a contest.
"Let's try for the one lying flat." said the first man as he lifted his rifle to his shoulder. I heard the distinctive click of the hammer being pulled back to full and I squeezed my eyes shut.
The blast was quick to follow and I could almost hear the bullet whizz towards me and pass just above my head, ruffling my hair in its path.
"I think you boys have had enough target practice for one night, don't you think? Let dead men lie." Said a not unfriendly voice. "We'll see to the ones in the meadow in the morning."
A warm bead of what I assumed to be sweat rolled down my forehead and into my brow as I remembered how to breath. Reaching up slowly to wipe it away, it was only when I pulled my hand away that I realized sweat wasn't coloured black in moonlight. Blood was. Reaching up again I felt a graze above my temple from where the bullet had passed over my head. The man had not missed after all.
Taking hold of the dropped musket again, I waited until I was sure they were not looking and then pulled it from the much holier private on the grass. I kept pressing my oversized sleeve to my forehead as the blood oozed down the side of my face. Crawling backwards, I made my way back to the pile of four other muskets, three pistols, and cartridge bags I had collected. From there I managed to push them to the edge and into the pit of the foundations. It would not be long before the sun rose and the colonists were finished with the traitorous band that had left me and came to pillage the rest of their spoils of war; and I would be ready for them.

I lay down the last musket after checking that it was loaded. It was close to dawn and I knew I would get no more sleep this night watching the militia's lines just beyond the tree line. Settling down on my haunches, I watched the flickering firelight across the field. My eyelids slowly became heavier, however, and soon they drooped low. The cool breeze that blew across the meadow chilled the blood that continued to roll down my face. I wiped it away again and took a swig of water from my canteen to keep awake. I knew the sunrise would bring me either death or escape, maybe capture, but the enemy did not know I was there  in the dug out foundations and that gave me an advantage.
It wasn't until the first rays of sunlight crawled over the treetops, as if afraid to see what had happened while it slept, that the colonists also began to crawl out of their blood-drunk sleeps and survey their victory in the proper light. I had caught minutes of sleep only, totalling about an hour, and blinked tiredly as I watched their movements from the edge of the foundations. It took another quarter hour before the first of them began to walk out onto to the field to inspect the five bodies lying there. I clutched the first musket tightly and slowly slid it onto the top edge. The moment I squeezed the trigger had to be perfect. Not too soon that they ran back and swept around me, and not too late that they could easily pinpoint my location and invade my little fortress. The first of them reached the body of their target practice and inspected the handiwork. Then frowned, confusion filling his face, or what I guessed was confusion from half a field away.
"This one's got no weapon. No cartridges either." He called to his mates, and they jogged forward to see. I held my finger on the gun-stock. Not yet.
"Maybe, he was the fifer or sumthin'" said another man, pushing the private onto his back with a foot. Another man knelt and checked inside his coat. I breathed in and out slowly.
"He's got no markings to say he was. Maybe his mates grabbed his gun." said the kneeling man. "let's check the others."
I moved my finger to the trigger but held it there loosely, the hammer was already cocked at full, I needed to only squeeze. They moved to the next body, sixty yards out, found nothing. I tightened my grip and took aim. Then the next body was reached, fifty yards out. I took my final deep breath.
My first shot hit the first man squarely on his frontier hat, blasting it off his head but leaving him unscathed, I tossed the wasted gun aside and grabbed another musket from the pile. I continued this way; fire, discard, pick up, aim, fire; a few of the men I hit or grazed the arms and legs. Once I got sloppy and grazed a man's face, but none of the enemy fell and stayed down. I never aimed to kill, well, almost never.
At last the enemy realized where the fire was coming from. Someone called from the back of the group and they began to fire upon my position from the openness of the field. Dirt flew wherever they hit and I ducked just in time and grabbed the last musket. A few more shots hit the ground in front of me and I ducked and rolled to the other side of the pile of discarded muskets, they lay on my left side now and the group of four pistols, including my own, were on my right. I flipped over and resumed firing. My pile was dangerously low and the amount of militia was still scarily high, and so I attempted to load one of the pistols. This caused my to miss a man coming from the side. I rolled with the gun in my hand and just as I was aiming, his shot came first and cut across my left arm. My gun discharged in the air as I fell back.
For a moment I was stunned. The morning sky above me was clearer than I had seen it in weeks.
A shot buzzed over my head and I was jolted back to the present. Turning back to the attack, I grabbed the last pistol from the pile and raised myself up to the edge; but it was too late. They were upon me.  A tall man had run up the front, and just as my head came up, so did his boot. It connected with my jaw and I rolled back down. I could feel blood already soaking my arm, and now I tasted it in my mouth, dizziness suddenly came over me.
The man signalled a ceasefire and then jumped down to me, a knife in in his hand. He knelt down with a knee on my ribs. The other hand encircled my neck and clamped down, the knife came between it and my chin.
"It's a miracle to have lasted this long, lad, I hate to be the one to end it." he said after shaking his head.
I brought up the pistol that had landed under my hip and pressed it to his belly. "Ah've always been a believer in miracles, another one would be me and yae both making it oot o' this alive. What say yae tae that?" the man looked down as I cocked the hammer back. He laughed and eased off the pressure on my neck, and I pulled back off his belly.
Laughing again the man said "So now what? We enter into a battle of endurance? See who can hold out the longest?"
"Nae, I'd say the winner would be whoever gets reinforcements first." said I, noticing the militia pouring over the embankment. The man also noticed this and smiled.
"So you gonna set down the gun?"
"Ah'd rather keep my neck unscathed thanks."
There were around thirty men now, some holding wounded limbs. The one I had grazed on the head was pressing a rag to the wound and I grimaced. One man, I recognized him as the one who shot me earlier, chuckled at the sight the two of us made.
"He's really got you good huh, Gabe?" Said he.
"Yeah, suppose it's what happens when you let your guard down with a Scotsman."  He smirked at me. Four or five rifle tips came into my view, all pointed at my head, neck and heart. Gabe, who still had his knee on my chest, put his knife back in his boot and grabbed the pistol from my hand. It automatically went to the hand around my throat and tried to loosen his grip. His hand went down and instead gripped my shirt front and pulled me to my feet. I tried to lift my left arm, but the wound had already stiffened it, I didn't realize the blood loss I had suffered until I was standing. The dizziness returned and my knees buckled under me. Gabe let go and I crumpled to the ground. I heard voices coming from far away.
"Aw shoot Jones, did'ja have to get him so good?"
"He deserved it!"
"Morgan's not gonna be happy."
My vision was blurry as I watched Gabe approach me and reach for my left arm, I tried to pull away but everything faded then. The last thing I saw was a white blur jumping down to me, and the last thing I heard came from a not unfriendly voice in the distance.
"I thought I told you boys I wanted him alive."