Chapter 28 #2
Holding hands, they lifted their skirts and ran down the block and around the corner. The moment they did so, they skidded to a stop.
Hundreds of British soldiers, including some cavalry, were rushing down the street, muskets blasting, sabers raised.
The militia who were charging to meet them formed a pathetic resistance, a mere handful of men.
Aghast, Virginia could not move, watching the massacre taking place before her very eyes.
One by one, every single American militiaman was slain in the matter of a moment.
Virginia had never seen so much blood and death.
She gagged, clutching her belly, vaguely aware of the tears streaming down her face.
Devlin was a part of this.
Virginia turned and retched.
Tillie held her, whispering urgently, “We need to go! There’s more on the way!”
Virginia’s heart pounded with sickening force.
She turned and fled back the way they had come, her arm in Tillie’s, and when they turned the corner they paused, facing each other in real fear.
Virginia wondered if her eyes were as wide and horrified as Tillie’s.
“They must have planned a second assault from the rear—they must have landed other troops farther up the inlet,” Virginia whispered, trembling.
“How do we get out of here? We cannot leave Frank,” Tillie cried.
Virginia did not know how they were going to get out of the town.
“Come,” she whispered. They could hardly stay where they were, so close to that terrible battle, and as they ran down the block, a building behind them exploded, then burst into flames.
They turned onto another street and then leapt back against a brick house.
A hundred British troops were fighting some dozen militiamen with muskets blazing and swords clanging.
Within moments, not a militiaman was left standing and a river of blood ran through the street.
Virginia choked on bile.
Tillie was sobbing, but soundlessly.
The redcoats hadn’t seen them as they stood huddled in a doorway, the mounted officers ordering the infantry to regroup. Their predicament had become crystal clear.
The town was overrun. Hampton would fall. It would be a massacre. How in God’s name would they escape? Could they even survive?
“Virginia,” Tillie said tersely, poking her with an elbow.
Virginia followed her gaze and froze in abject horror at the sight of a mounted officer wearing the blue coat of the British navy.
“Over there,” a British army officer shouted.
Virginia jerked and saw a man stepping out of his stable. She knew him well—it was the Hampton blacksmith, John Ames, holding his hunting rifle. As he lifted it, a dozen muskets blasted and he fell.
A woman screamed. She came running out of the stable, screaming still, and Virginia shouted, “No, Martha!” to his wife, but it was too late.
Martha flung herself down on her husband’s body as Virginia saw a marine aim his musket at her.
The British soldier fired and hit the woman, clearly killing her. Virginia could not move, stunned.
Tillie had taken Virginia’s hand. “They’re murdering innocent people,” she said hoarsely. “We’ve got to go.”
Virginia turned, her heart lurching with dread, seeking out the naval officer in blue. Instantly she found him. She cried out.
“What is it?”
It was Thomas Hughes.
She stared at him across the street, a battlefield of the wounded and the dead, and a chill went down her spine.
What was he doing there? As far as she knew, his career had been spent in the offices of the Admiralty in London. But she could not think about him now.
Because Tillie was dragging her away and shouting at her to run. Virginia realized that they had been seen—and a dozen marines had turned their way.
As they started firing, she and Tillie ran.
“Jesus Christ,” Devlin cried, sitting astride the horse he had summarily taken from a civilian.
The town was an inferno. The dead and the dying littered the streets, both militia and civilians, women and children.
The attacking forces had been two thousand strong, to ensure a decisive and swift victory after the humiliation of Norfolk.
Devlin had seen soldiers go berserk and burn, rape, loot and murder before, but he had not expected to see the terrible plunder he was now witnessing.
Word had quickly reached him aboard the Defiance that the British marines were out of hand—mostly fueled on by the French who fought with them, prisoners of war who had enlisted to avoid their confinement.
Yet he doubted all the blame lay with the Frenchmen in their ranks—he suspected Cockburn had encouraged the carnage, damn his black soul to the fires of hell.
Even now, a group of marines, mostly inebriated, were destroying a shop, the nearby buildings entirely in flames, a dead woman and child in the middle of the street.
“Lieutenant,” he shouted in fury to one of the British officers.
The officer rode up to him. “Yes, sir?”
“Stop those men and arrest them all,” he ordered. And he was thinking of his wife.
“But, sir!” The young officer was wide-eyed.
“Shoot them if you have to!” he said grimly. “All troops are to return to their respective commands. Our work is done here. We have clearly won.” Inside, he was sick, a sickness that reached his soul.
But he shoved it aside. The battle might be over, but there remained much work to be done.
He spurred his mount into a canter, determined to inspect the town.
But inspection was a real impossibility.
British troops ran amok everywhere. As he turned the corner he discovered two more of his troops in the act of raping a woman, surrounded by a dozen cheering men.
Seized with fury, Devlin did not pause. He unsheathed his sword and charged the men.
Instantly several turned and fled, the others backing away.
The woman scrambled to her feet and ran.
“Stand at attention,” he snapped, the urge to strike them all down wild and huge. They stared at him with wide, fearful eyes. “There is to be no more plunder, no rape, no looting. Report to your respective commands.”
The men stood down. “Aye, sir,” one said, his eyes popping.
He spurred his mount on, thinking of Virginia again. This was her home—the town was close enough to Sweet Briar that she must frequent it often—and he hated what he and the British had done. At least she was spared the sight of this, he thought grimly, and he thanked God for that.
But it did not seem as if the town could be saved. Half of it would be ashes by nightfall, and he was afraid to count the American dead. Not for the first time, he was silently grateful that Virginia was safe and sound at Sweet Briar.
As always, regret and grief warred in his chest.
Dusk began. The battle was over except for a few isolated incidents; most of the troops had been brought back under control.
Devlin dismounted to inspect one scene, where dozens of militia and civilians lay dead or dying in the street, the British medics already present and tending to their own.
“What is the tally so far?” he asked, weary beyond words.
“Our losses are few, sir,” a young doctor said. He was covered in soot and blood, as was Devlin, though he hadn’t realized it until that moment. “But I’m afraid the Americans have suffered in the hundreds.”
“How many hundreds?” he asked, a movement catching his eye. There would be hell to pay for this day.
“Three, four, five, it’s impossible to say just now.”
Devlin narrowed his eyes. He knew that man lurking across the street, did he not? And then Devlin recognized the slave, having seen him once before, at night, hiding in the front hall at Sweet Briar. He strode across the bloody street, avoiding tramping upon the bodies there. “You, man, wait!”
The black man turned and began to run.
“Damn it, halt! Halt before I fire,” he roared, the threat an idle one.
The man froze, hands lifting in the air.
Devlin hurried to him. “Turn around. I will not hurt you,” he said. The man obeyed. “You’re from Sweet Briar.”
He nodded, eyes wide with both fear and recognition. “An’ you be Miz Virginia’s husband. The captain,” he said.
He now nodded, a sudden, terrible inkling beginning. “She is safe, is she not? She did obey me when I told her to stay at the plantation?”
The man’s eyes filled with tears. “No, sir!” he cried. “She done come to town to see a doctor, as she’s been poorly for some time now, and then the fighting began and I don’t know where she is!”
Devlin’s world tilted wildly. And for the first time in his life he knew horror.
“She is here?” he shouted. “My wife is here, in this town, now, today?” he cried.
The man nodded.
“Where?” he gasped, seized with a fear he had never before experienced. Had she been wounded? Raped? Was she even alive? How could she have survived this terrible battle? “Where did you last see her?” He realized he was shaking the man.
“I’ll show you, sir,” the man cried.
Together they ran through the burning town. It seemed to take hours to arrive at a shop that had its display window broken, the entire interior looted, but Devlin knew it had taken mere minutes. “I left ’em here to shop for a bit, before goin’ to the doctor,” Frank said on a sob.
Devlin went cold inside, and slowly, his hand on his sword, he looked around.
Dead littered the streets. A few shops and homes burned. Dusk was deepening. There were stars tonight, stars and the beginning of a full moon. He felt helpless then.
If she’s dead I will die, he thought. And I will kill whoever was responsible.
But he was responsible, wasn’t he?
For if it weren’t for his damned obsession with the Earl of Eastleigh and his refusal to put revenge aside, she would be safely at Waverly Hall, not here in this hellhole of blood and death.
“Help me find her,” he said.