Jeremy fired blindly into the dark, then reached down for his pike. As he touched it, his eyes met those of the dying freeholder lying beside him. Blood now streamed from a gash in the man's tattered jerkin, while a red rivulet flowed in pulses from the corner of his mouth. The sight flooded him with anger.
"No!" He heard himself yelling as he groped down his bandolier for another charge-holder. "No retreat." He turned to the startled men around him. "Reload. I say no retreat!"
"But that's the orders, Yor Worship." A bearded militiaman had already begun to scramble up the back side of the trench.
"Devil take the orders. Look." He seized the militiaman's jerkin and yanked him back, then pointed to the dying freeholder at their feet.
"Aye, that's Roland Jenkins, may God rest his soul. I'm like to be the one tellin' his wife." The freeholder gave a quick glance. "But there's nothin' to be done, Yor Worship. Orders are to retreat."
"And I say damn the orders." He was yelling to all the men now. "There are men here, wounded and dying. I'm staying with them. What kind of soldiers are we, to leave these men to die? It's wrong. There're higher orders to be obeyed. I say no."
"An' we'll all end up like this poor sod, Yor Worship. There's no helpin' a man who's gone to meet his God." The man threw his musket onto the fresh dirt at the bottom of the trench and turned to begin clambering to safety. "For my own part, I can do just as well not greetin' the Almighty for a few years more."
Jeremy seized his pike and marched down the trench. "I'll gut any man who tries to run. I'm in command here and I say we stand and fight. Now reload."
The men stared at him in disbelief.
"Do it, I say." He brandished the pike once more for emphasis, then flung it down and seized a charge-holder on his bandolier. Without so much as a glance at the other men, he began pouring the grainy black powder into the barrel of his musket.