“Sorry,” John said, and it was quite possibly the first time he’d ever apologized to an enemy on the battlefield. “I’m going to have to kill you.”
“Ah, well,” the other man said. “You know your duty. Be quick about it, if you must. Better me than you, don’t you think?”
Literally no other person had ever said that to John on the battlefield. John frowned down at the man in front of him, and…
And, oh Christ. He suddenly realized that he’d heard of this man. His friend Marcelo had mentioned something about encountering him before. British officer. Tall. Meaty. Blond. He’d chalked the tale up to campfire boasting. When he’d heard there was a madman who couldn’t stop talking, John had imagined something along the lines of a berserker, frothing at the mouth. He hadn’t expected a mere prattle-basket.
“I think it’s better me than you,” John said, frowning down at the man. “You can’t possibly agree.”
A flare from the battle reflected in the other man’s eyes, temporarily illuminating him. John didn’t want to see his face. He didn’t want to see the haunted expression in his eyes. He didn’t want to remember him as a person. He should never have let the clamor of battle give way to the sound of conversation, because he suspected that the tone of this man’s voice—all gravel and regret—would stay with him all the rest of his days.
“Don’t make me go back,” the man said, so at odds with his cheery conversation on politics. “I can’t go back to England. Dying is not my preferred form of non-return, but for the past months it’s the only one I’ve been able to think of.”
John tightened his grip on the musket. He couldn’t listen. He couldn’t think. In battle, he could only allow himself to be a husk, an automaton. Fight. Survive. Killing was a necessary part of war. He’d learned not to look too hard at his enemies, not to ask too many questions. He’d learned not to let himself dwell too much on the men who perished at the other end of his musket.
It was always a mistake to listen during battle. Here he was, hesitating, when it was either John or the man who’d asked him about books and the weather. He could make it painless—as painless as death by bayonet ever was.
The man gave him a sad smile. “It’s nice weather for dying, isn’t it?”
He was lying. He had to be lying. This was the sort of thing for a lying officer to do—to converse politely, as if manners meant a damned thing on the battlefield. John pushed his bayonet down a quarter inch.
“Go on,” the man said.
His permission made it even harder. John didn’t want to do it, but it was John or the prattle-basket, John or the prattle-basket, and John had come too far to perish now.
A bugle sounded.
John looked up into chaos. He could hear cheers, could see the lieutenant colonel in charge of this attack—Hamilton, was it not?—clapping one of the soldiers on the back. Ah, the idiot in command had survived storming the parapet after all. While John had been fighting, his fellow soldiers had stormed the redoubt and taken it.
It was done. They’d won.
He eased up on the bayonet. “It’s your lucky day. You’re a prisoner now, instead of a dead man.”
“No.” The man’s hand clasped around the musket barrel, holding the bayonet in place. “No. You have to do it.”
“What?” John stared at him.
“You have to do it,” the man instructed. “Do you understand? If you Americans take the redoubt, Yorktown falls. If Yorktown falls, the war is over. If you don’t kill me now, they’ll make me go back to Britain, and I can’t go back.”
“Can’t?” John swallowed and looked down.
“Can’t.” The man shut his eyes.
They’d called him a madman, and John had imagined a demon on the battlefield, not a man who talked of politics.
Perhaps it was mad to prefer death to a return to a place that could never be called home, but if that was madness, it was a madness John knew. He’d once been enslaved. He knew what it was like to yearn for freedom, to prefer death to a return to a state that robbed him of choice, of freedom, of humanity. The fellow was obviously given to dramatics. John doubted anything so horrid waited for him back in England. Still… He understood.
He didn’t want to have anything in common with a blond British officer…but he did.
He should take the man prisoner. Should call for reinforcements. Who knew what this man would do if John gave him the opportunity?
“I can’t go back,” the man said again.
John should never have listened. Damn it, damn it, damn it. He swore and threw down his weapon.
The man struggled, propping himself up on his elbows.
“Then don’t.” John took off his coat. “Here.” He held the garment out.
It wasn’t much—a bit tattered, and God knew what it smelled like; John couldn’t detect the stench any longer.
The man stared at it.
“It’s not red.” John shook the coat. “It’s a mess out there as it is. Get muddy enough and nobody will know who you are. If you don’t want to go back to Britain, turn into an American. You talk enough; I’m sure you can come up with a believable lie. Get out of here. Don’t go back.”
The man stared at him. “Why would you let me go? I’m the enemy.”
“Enemy?” John rolled his eyes. “Take a good look at me. I have little love for…what did you call them? The colonial brand of imperialist scum. I have no enemies, just people I fight on a battlefield.”
The officer sat up. Looked at John. John knew what he was seeing—not the broad shoulders, not the determination John knew flashed in his own eyes, nor the set of his square jaw. No, this blond prattler who talked of manners and politics would see only the brown of his skin.
John was an idiot to offer anything. But he knew too well what it was like to have no hope of help and to find it anyway.
Here, he thought to the woman at the well who had shaken her head, denying his existence to the man who sought John. John had crouched hidden behind the bushes until the threat had passed. She’d looked at him then. She hadn’t spoken; she’d only nodded and left, as if she hadn’t changed his life with that simple denial. Here. I’m paying you back for that after all.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” John said. “I don’t want to be your friend. I’ll kill you on the battlefield if I have to. But if you’re desperate enough to die, you’re desperate enough to abscond. If you don’t want to go back, get rid of your damned officer’s coat and take
mine.”
The man stared up at him. He looked at the coat, at the musket that John had tossed aside.
Slowly, he took John’s coat. “I won’t forget this,” he said. “I’ll pay you back someday.”
John had heard that particular promise before. He’d heard it when he saved his father from being crushed by a falling mast. He’d heard it when he’d rescued another man in the Rhode Island First on the battlefield. Half the time, white men didn’t even bother with empty words to assuage their consciences—at least not to the likes of him. The other half? They never remembered their promises. They didn’t have to.
John shook his head. “Don’t bother.”
“John?” Elijah’s call came from further in. “John, is that you down there? Are you wounded?”
He turned, leaving the British officer alone with his coat. He was already faintly regretting his choice—the late-autumn night was cold enough that he’d want that coat before morning struck.
He would never see the man again.
In the dark of the night, the man had no idea what John even looked like. Even if it were day, he’d never be able to distinguish John from any other black man. White men rarely could.
“I’m Henry,” the officer called after him. “Henry Latham, at your service.”
Henry Latham no doubt thought he was an honorable fellow. He’d tell himself that one day he’d return the favor, just as he assiduously avoided contact with anyone who looked like John. There was little use puncturing his illusions.
John knew that the roll of his eyes was hidden by the night, so he took care to imbue an extra dose of sarcasm in his tone. “I’ll be sure to remember that.”
“John?” Elijah was coming closer. “John, are you well?”
“I’m alive,” John called in return. “Alive and unharmed.” His body was already protesting the unharmed designation, his shoulder twingeing, his head still hurting.
Ha. He had already forgotten the name. He’d never hear from the man again.
Interested? You can get the standalone version of The Pursuit Of… by clicking here after June 26, 2018, or the full anthology of Hamilton’s Battalion here.