CHAPTER IX. MY GUIDE.
I remember no night in which I saw more misery. The sharpshooters never slept, and the dark seemed to profit them as much as the day. They enveloped the British camp like a swarm of unseen bees, all the more deadly because no man knew where they hovered nor whence nor when the sting would come. Men brave in the day are less brave at night, and every British officer I saw looked worn, and fearful of the future. I confess that I began to grow anxious on my own account, for in this darkness my old Continentals could not serve as a warning that I was no proper target. I have always preserved a high regard for the health and welfare of Richard Shelby, Esq., and I withdrew him farther into the camp. There I saw many wounded and more sick, and but scant means for their treatment. Moreover, the list of both was increasing, and even as I wandered about, the fresh-wounded were taken past me, sometimes crying out in their pain.
There were many who took no part in the fighting—Tories who had come to the British camp with their wives and little children, and the wives of the English and Hessian officers who had come down from Canada with them, expecting a march of glory and triumph to New York. For these I felt most sorrow, as it is very cruel that women and children should have to look upon war. More than once I heard the lamentations of women and the frightened weeping of little children. Sometimes the flaring torches showed me their scared faces. These non-combatants, in truth, were beyond the range of the fire, but the wounded men were always before them.
It was but natural that amid so much tumult and suspense I should remain forgotten. My uniform, dingy in the brightest sun, was scarce noticeable in the half-lit dusk, and I wandered about the camp almost at will. The night was not old before I noticed the bustle of great preparations. Officers hurried about as if time of a sudden had doubled its value. Soldiers very anxiously examined their muskets and bayonets; cannon were wheeled into more compact batteries; more ammunition was gathered at convenient points. On all faces I saw expectation.
I thought at first that some night skirmish was intended, but the bustle and the hurrying extended too much for that. I set about more thorough explorations, and it was easy enough to gather that Burgoyne intended to risk all in a pitched battle on the morrow. These were the preparations for it.
Curiosity had taken away from me, for the moment, the desire to go back to my own people, but now it returned with double force. It was not likely that my warning of the coming battle could be of much value, for our forces were vigilant; but I had the natural desire of youth to be with our own army, and not with that of the enemy, at the coming of such a great event.
But the chance for my return looked very doubtful. Both armies were too busy to pay heed to a flag of truce even if it could be seen in the night.
I wandered about looking for some means of escape to our own lines, and in seeking to reach the other side of the camp passed once more through the space in which the women and children lay. I saw a little one-roomed house, abandoned long since by its owners. The uncertain light from the window fought with the shadows outside.
I stepped to the window, which was open, and looked in. They had turned the place into a hospital. A doctor with sharp instruments in his hand was at work. A woman with strong white arms, bare almost to the shoulder, was helping him. She turned away presently, her help not needed just then, and saw my face at the window.