Chapter 3
"We agreed to this, Gretchen," Sarah hissed as she closed the kitchen door behind herself. "Even before Anna went to talk to his commander. He's not a British soldier."
Gretchen sat at the table, her face a storm cloud. Her mug of tea had grown cold in front of her.
"He might as well be," Gretchen grumbled. "His pockets are full of British gold, and if he'd been in Boston —"
"But he wasn't. He's just a boy, Gretchen, far from home. Why, I doubt he even knows how to fire his musket."
"I'm sure he knows well enough. He may not have blood on his hands yet, but soon —"
Sarah laughed and slipped her cloak off, draping it over the back of a chair.
"Soon they'll all be running back to New York as fast as their legs can carry them," said Sarah. "We'll see in the New Year without a foreign soldier for miles around."
"You're a bit too confident of that. In Boston —"
"The British fled Boston for Halifax," Sarah said, "and had to recruit a brand new German army to hold New York. You know as well as I do that as soon as the rebels cross the river —"
"If the rebels cross the river."
"They will. And they'll set them all running."
"All but this one," Gretchen said, nodding her head toward the barn behind the house. The rhythmic sound of Hans' axe came faintly through the windows, carried on the crisp winter air. "What about him?"
Sarah smiled and went to the stove to pour herself a cup of tea, and brought the pot back to the table to warm Gretchen's mug.
"We'll keep him," Sarah said. "Hide him in the cellar if we have to. He's ... a nice boy, Gretchen."
"Hessian soldier," Gretchen grumbled, raising the lukewarm mug to her lips. "We ought to send him packing before the weather turns."