The Colonel's Daughter
Over the sharp crack of musketry, the roar of cannon, and the other miscellaneous roar of battle, Chris heard a thunder of hooves. Ducking below the fence line and rolling over onto his back to reload, his eyes clapped onto the rider. An over sized blue jacket with the corporal's stripes flapped behind while the red woolen skirt ruffled in the wind. Pistol in hand, hair flying, the rider was a sixteen year old girl.
He spit his powder horn's cap out with a mix of disgust and admiration. Easing the powder down the muzzle of his hot barrel, he muttered, “There she is again. The Colonel's daughter in the middle of the fight!”
Ramming the ball down, he resumed his front facing position and took careful aim at the white belts crossed on the nearest red-breast. He never fired that round, flung backward by an enemy's ball through his own shoulder.
Chris fought for consciousness while simultaneously trying to clamp off the agonized yell issuing from his throat. Sparks flew in front of his eyes and the next thing he knew, girlish arms had seized him around the chest. He felt his heels digging furrows as she drug him with surprising speed towards where her horse stood, calmly watching his mistress.
“Can ye ride?”
Chris looked up into the brown eyes staring down into his. He blinked. Odd time to be noticing for the first time that the Colonel's daughter was actually a handsome girl.
“Never have.”
His reply came through gritted teeth.
She bit her lip, adjusted her grip, and returned to dragging him. Glancing up at the horse, she whistled and jerked her head. He cocked his ears and followed them.
Chris assumed he must have passed out, because the next thing he was aware of was voices.
“Ah-so ye've brought me anoother one, have'ya, Darlin'?”
“That'd be right, O'Mallory. Took a ball to the left shoulder. I saw him fall.”
“Lemme see, m'dear...hmm. Clean though. He ought to heal nicely, I think.”
“Good...good. He strikes me as a likely lad.”
At that, the surgeon threw back his head and laughed heartily, rather an odd sound in the midst of the groans and screams of wounded men. “Oh, aye! Ye'd think they were all likely lads, that you would! Now, run along and find me anoother.”
Chris opened one eye in time to see the Colonel's daughter running back toward where her horse was standing. His other eye flew open as she took a flying leap, landing astride the animal without ever touching the stirrup. O'Mallory laughed again.
“Oh, aye! And she a likely lass, eh, lad?”
Chris flushed and felt a retort rising, but it died on his lips when he met the kindly eyes of the doctor.
“Yes, yes...” O'Mallory continued, “I would me own daughter was as brave. But nay...she hides and cries because her beau is a Tory and I told 'im no more to come aboot. Ye'll be fine, me lad....only let me bind up yer wound.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Chris had recovered sufficiently to move about by evening, his rough upbringing in the foothills of the mountains having created in him a toughness of body and spirit calculated to not be held down by minor wounds. Poking about with his arm in a sling, he found work to do delivering water to the other unfortunate wounded. He kept looking back toward the battlefield and felt an acute pang as he realized the loss of his musket. It had been his father's, but now was likely lost to him forever.
Suddenly, she appeared again, as if from mist which was rising. Nearly riding him down as she came, the Colonel's daughter galloped into camp. The cry coming from her lips took a moment to sink in, but as it became clear what she was saying, things began to happen.
“O'Mallory! Get the wounded out! We are being pushed back! Move them!! Move them! Hurry!!”
As she wheeled her steed, a crack sounded close to Chris' head. Seconds later, horse and rider were in a flailing, screaming mass. Chris tore toward the wreck.
Looking down, he saw the brown eyes wrinkled up in pain. When she saw him, she instinctively reached out both arms, imploring him to help her.
Chris hesitated only a moment before he went down on one knee to free her from the dead horse. Without the use of both hands it took him longer than it might have otherwise. It also didn't help that the Colonel's daughter had a vice-grip on his arm. At last, he freed her and pulled her out from under the horse. As he fell back with her on top of him, he gasped and choked with the wind knocked out of him. In a moment, he asked, “Can ye stand?”
She looked at him through tears, “I'll try, but it hurts mightily.”
Try she did, but the leg that had been trapped under the horse collapsed beneath her.
O'Mallory and his helpers had followed the girl's instructions swiftly and it was clear that the little drama going on at the edge of the camp had gone largely unnoticed. There were wagons already on the move out. O'Mallory was busy packing his instruments and ordering the loading of men.
Chris looked down at the girl. She was on her knees beside him, one hand hooked through his belt and the top of her head pressed against it. He frowned determinedly, ripped the sling off, and ignoring the pain reached down and scooped the muddied girl up. For some reason, he found it surprising that she was crying.
“There now. Ye'll be fine.”
She shook her head against his shoulder and kept right on weeping.
Chris was headed toward the wagons, when the battle suddenly crashed into the camp. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and Chris found himself running as best he could, toward the closest clump of undergrowth. Reaching it further unscathed, Chris dropped the girl rather ungracefully and shielded her from the fire that was ripping the trees and shrubs all around. A mighty splinter sliced through his arm as a tree branch overhead was sheared off by a cannon ball.
As darkness fell and the battle moved away, Chris relaxed onto the ground and eventually fell asleep.
~ ~ ~ ~
There were birds twittering overhead. Chris shivered in his sleep, an action that jarred him awake, due to the pain in his arm. Opening his eyes, he blinked sharply several times...because he was looking straight into a set of brown eyes set into a drawn and dirty face.
Suddenly, the corners of those eyes wrinkled up a little and a small laugh sounded.
“Oh, it's alright. It's just me. Don't you remember?”
Chris sat up, or rather tried to sit up. His hair was painfully tangled in the undergrowth. Leaning on his elbow, he smiled crookedly.
“I do now. How are you feeling?”
“Stiff and sore. I don't think my leg is broken though. Just badly sprained.”
She was sitting up now and pulled her skirt up to her knee and rolled her stocking down. Chris' eyes got big and he looked away.
She sighed a little irritably.
“There is no room for that. I need you to inspect my leg.”
Chris looked back at her and slowly shifted to get a better view of her leg, which was undoubtedly bruised if nothing else. She had particularly large bluish marks around her knee.
“Pull of my boot, if you will.”
It really wasn't a question. Chris eased off the girl's boot and watched her wiggle her toes in her stocking.
“Now what?” he asked, not sure exactly what she expected of him.
She observed her leg for a moment longer, wriggling her foot around. Then she cocked her head to one side and with a firm nod, she ordered, “Pull on it.”
“What?”
“Like this.”
She grabbed one of his hands and planted it just above her knee, “Now, take ahold of the ankle and pull on it.”
He looked up at her, embarrassed. She grinned back a little sheepishly.
“I have helped O'Mallory enough to know a few tricks. It may relieve the sprain to straighten any twists out. Give it a good, solid pull.”
And he did. She yelped a little.
After a moment, she pulled her stocking back up, flipped her skirt down, and nodded.
“I think that is better.”
They sat there looking at one another in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Chris said, “I am going to crawl out and see what there is to see.”
She nodded. Chris slid out of their hiding place and stopped dead. The soles of his shoes were still visible to the Colonel's daughter.
Before him was a burnt out camp. Dead men in blue and buff, buckskin, and red littered the clearing. Dead horses and mules added to the abysmal scene. Most disconcerting though, was the live men moving about, upright, with muskets shouldered against blood red uniforms. Pickets...guards...this area was not safe for a Colonial soldier...and a girl.
Chris wormed back in and one look at is face and the girl knew it was trouble.
“We have to get out of here—as quietly as possible.”
She nodded and together they started to cautiously crawl away from what only yesterday morning had been a thriving Continental army camp.
As they moved along, Chris' brain thrummed with activity trying to think what their next move should be. He knew woods well and wasn't overly worried about starvation—even without a firearm, but where to go once they got out of the woods preyed on his mind. Finally it dawned on him that the Colonel's daughter might have some idea as to where they should head next.
When they paused in their travels to rest, Chris rolled over on his back and looked the girl over. She was sitting against a tree, picking leaves and twigs out of her hair. She really was a likely lass, as O'Mallory had said—but he would prefer it if she was as helpful as she were pretty.
“I have been thinking,” Chris began.
“Good. So have I.”
Biting back irritation, Chris began again, “I have been thinking about where we should be headed. I can get us around in the woods well enough, but I do not know where the army might head to regroup. Being the Colonel's daughter, I thought you might have some ideas?”
She smiled a little sadly, “Colletville, perhaps? I cannot rejoin the army anyway...because...”
She looked out through the trees absently.
“Because?” Chris prompted, surprised.
She drug her gaze out of nothingness and looked at him, “Yes. Because my father was killed. He was all I have. My mother died when I was born and I have no relatives...but one.”
Her face wrinkled slightly.
To Chris' questioning glance, she retorted, “My uncle. He's a Tory.”
Chris understood the fix she was in and also suddenly understood why a girl of sixteen would ride with the army the way she had. He shifted positions.
“Friends?”
“The Alexanders in Charlotte. They would take me.”
Mind made up, Chris sat up.
“Very well, we go to Charlotte first and then I'll find the army and rejoin.”
“But they might shoot you for a deserter if you wait to rejoin them!”
“What if you wrote a letter explaining the circumstances?”
She took the suggestion thoughtfully.
“Or, if we find the army first, you might get leave—you are hurt after all—to escort me the rest of the way to Charlotte.”
“They'd want to give you an officer instead of a private,” Chris pointed out, somehow perturbed by the idea.
The girl smiled as though to herself and started to get up. Chris hopped up and helped her the rest of the way to her feet. The leg was clearly giving her some trouble, but she was not complaining.
~ ~ ~ ~
It was dark again. Chris didn't dare start a fire and neither did he wish to offer raw rabbit to the Colonel's daughter. She looked at him expectantly as he stood there, a small rabbit dangling from his hand.
“Dinner?”
He sighed, “Only if you don't mind raw meat.”
She grinned, “I'm hungry enough.”
Neither one would have claimed it to be the best meal they had ever eaten, but food was food—even if it was raw rabbit.
Morning dawned on them—Chris laying flat on his back, oblivious that the girl had tried to cover him with the extra expanse of her skirt. She lay curled in a ball with her back against his arm, her skirt spread out over one of his legs. It was a pitiful picture. Blue and red, blood and dirt. Two young people hurt and hungry.
She woke first and sat up smacking wildly at an insect traipsing across her face. Chris woke to his companion slapping herself and he could not help laughing. She glared at him, a self-inflicted red mark across her cheek adding to her ferociousness.
It took them only a few minutes to get their major kinks worked out as they headed out, following the road they had come to around dark the evening before. They kept close to the edge, ready at any moment to dive into the woods.
It was an unnecessary precaution as they did not meet another living soul all morning. Around noon, they arrived at a cross-roads. Chris looked hard at the signs, struggling to read them....then stared at the Colonel's daughter.
She was standing in the middle of the road, eyes closed, fingers alternately pressed against her forehead and tracing lines in the air.
“Yes...yes...” she murmured.
“Well?”
She seemed to come out of a trance.
“Oh. I was looking at the maps in my head. Charlotte is roughly seventy miles that way.”
She gestured with her left hand to the south east.
“Well, let's go.”
Chris collected himself up to stride off, when she grabbed his arm.
“But Colletville is only about twenty miles that way.”
She pointed north east.
Chris ran his fingers through his hair and bit his lip. His own neck would be safer if he rejoined the army as soon as possible—but what if they weren't in Colletville after all? It would be wasted time when he could have gotten a good way down the road to having the Colonel's daughter to safety. Making up his mind, he took her elbow and pointed her down the road toward Charlotte.
“We're going to Charlotte.”
~ ~ ~ ~
It took Chris and the Colonel's daughter a week to reach Charlotte. The countyside seemed strangely empty and while they did pass a few farmers, they only received odd looks and were passed by.
Food was scarce. As neither Chris or the girl had any money, buying food was out of the question. They survived on the wild things that Chris either gathered or killed.
At last Charlotte was in view—and with it—the army.
By late afternoon, the two young people had arrived at the home of the Alexanders. It was a shock for the cultured Alexanders to see the daughter of a well-respected colonel not only dirty and injured, but clinging contentedly to the arm of a rough backwoods private. They graciously refrained from any show of disapproval and welcomed both into the house for an opportunity to refresh themselves and eat. Mr. Alexander immediately sent off for the family doctor to look at Chris' wounds. Amazingly, neither were infected and both were healing well.
The following day, Chris bade farewell to the Alexanders and the Colonel's daughter and headed stoutly back to the army.
As they watched him march away, Mrs. Alexander put an arm around the girl's shoulder, “Claire, he's a fine young man.”
Claire leaned her head on the older woman's shoulder and smiled with pride and sadness co-mingled.
~ ~ ~ ~
The war was over. The cheering was deafening as the men celebrated the end of eight long years of fighting and the prospect of going home to their families.
Chris stood off by himself. He was older now, and the scar across his face which he had received from a British officer's saber only enhanced the effect.
Suddenly, through the shouting and the joyful popping of musketry, he heard the thrum of horses hooves. Turning his head, he saw the oversized blue jacket with corporal stripes flapping in the breeze and the red woolen skirt fluttering in the wind.
It couldn't be. She couldn't be here. No. She shouldn't be here. His mind was playing tricks on him because he'd been reading her letter....
The horse and rider skidded to a stop abreast of the young sergeant. Chris looked up, straight into a pair of brown eyes.
Claire, the Colonel's daughter, flung herself of her horse and into the arms of a rough, backwoods soldier.
He spit his powder horn's cap out with a mix of disgust and admiration. Easing the powder down the muzzle of his hot barrel, he muttered, “There she is again. The Colonel's daughter in the middle of the fight!”
Ramming the ball down, he resumed his front facing position and took careful aim at the white belts crossed on the nearest red-breast. He never fired that round, flung backward by an enemy's ball through his own shoulder.
Chris fought for consciousness while simultaneously trying to clamp off the agonized yell issuing from his throat. Sparks flew in front of his eyes and the next thing he knew, girlish arms had seized him around the chest. He felt his heels digging furrows as she drug him with surprising speed towards where her horse stood, calmly watching his mistress.
“Can ye ride?”
Chris looked up into the brown eyes staring down into his. He blinked. Odd time to be noticing for the first time that the Colonel's daughter was actually a handsome girl.
“Never have.”
His reply came through gritted teeth.
She bit her lip, adjusted her grip, and returned to dragging him. Glancing up at the horse, she whistled and jerked her head. He cocked his ears and followed them.
Chris assumed he must have passed out, because the next thing he was aware of was voices.
“Ah-so ye've brought me anoother one, have'ya, Darlin'?”
“That'd be right, O'Mallory. Took a ball to the left shoulder. I saw him fall.”
“Lemme see, m'dear...hmm. Clean though. He ought to heal nicely, I think.”
“Good...good. He strikes me as a likely lad.”
At that, the surgeon threw back his head and laughed heartily, rather an odd sound in the midst of the groans and screams of wounded men. “Oh, aye! Ye'd think they were all likely lads, that you would! Now, run along and find me anoother.”
Chris opened one eye in time to see the Colonel's daughter running back toward where her horse was standing. His other eye flew open as she took a flying leap, landing astride the animal without ever touching the stirrup. O'Mallory laughed again.
“Oh, aye! And she a likely lass, eh, lad?”
Chris flushed and felt a retort rising, but it died on his lips when he met the kindly eyes of the doctor.
“Yes, yes...” O'Mallory continued, “I would me own daughter was as brave. But nay...she hides and cries because her beau is a Tory and I told 'im no more to come aboot. Ye'll be fine, me lad....only let me bind up yer wound.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Chris had recovered sufficiently to move about by evening, his rough upbringing in the foothills of the mountains having created in him a toughness of body and spirit calculated to not be held down by minor wounds. Poking about with his arm in a sling, he found work to do delivering water to the other unfortunate wounded. He kept looking back toward the battlefield and felt an acute pang as he realized the loss of his musket. It had been his father's, but now was likely lost to him forever.
Suddenly, she appeared again, as if from mist which was rising. Nearly riding him down as she came, the Colonel's daughter galloped into camp. The cry coming from her lips took a moment to sink in, but as it became clear what she was saying, things began to happen.
“O'Mallory! Get the wounded out! We are being pushed back! Move them!! Move them! Hurry!!”
As she wheeled her steed, a crack sounded close to Chris' head. Seconds later, horse and rider were in a flailing, screaming mass. Chris tore toward the wreck.
Looking down, he saw the brown eyes wrinkled up in pain. When she saw him, she instinctively reached out both arms, imploring him to help her.
Chris hesitated only a moment before he went down on one knee to free her from the dead horse. Without the use of both hands it took him longer than it might have otherwise. It also didn't help that the Colonel's daughter had a vice-grip on his arm. At last, he freed her and pulled her out from under the horse. As he fell back with her on top of him, he gasped and choked with the wind knocked out of him. In a moment, he asked, “Can ye stand?”
She looked at him through tears, “I'll try, but it hurts mightily.”
Try she did, but the leg that had been trapped under the horse collapsed beneath her.
O'Mallory and his helpers had followed the girl's instructions swiftly and it was clear that the little drama going on at the edge of the camp had gone largely unnoticed. There were wagons already on the move out. O'Mallory was busy packing his instruments and ordering the loading of men.
Chris looked down at the girl. She was on her knees beside him, one hand hooked through his belt and the top of her head pressed against it. He frowned determinedly, ripped the sling off, and ignoring the pain reached down and scooped the muddied girl up. For some reason, he found it surprising that she was crying.
“There now. Ye'll be fine.”
She shook her head against his shoulder and kept right on weeping.
Chris was headed toward the wagons, when the battle suddenly crashed into the camp. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and Chris found himself running as best he could, toward the closest clump of undergrowth. Reaching it further unscathed, Chris dropped the girl rather ungracefully and shielded her from the fire that was ripping the trees and shrubs all around. A mighty splinter sliced through his arm as a tree branch overhead was sheared off by a cannon ball.
As darkness fell and the battle moved away, Chris relaxed onto the ground and eventually fell asleep.
~ ~ ~ ~
There were birds twittering overhead. Chris shivered in his sleep, an action that jarred him awake, due to the pain in his arm. Opening his eyes, he blinked sharply several times...because he was looking straight into a set of brown eyes set into a drawn and dirty face.
Suddenly, the corners of those eyes wrinkled up a little and a small laugh sounded.
“Oh, it's alright. It's just me. Don't you remember?”
Chris sat up, or rather tried to sit up. His hair was painfully tangled in the undergrowth. Leaning on his elbow, he smiled crookedly.
“I do now. How are you feeling?”
“Stiff and sore. I don't think my leg is broken though. Just badly sprained.”
She was sitting up now and pulled her skirt up to her knee and rolled her stocking down. Chris' eyes got big and he looked away.
She sighed a little irritably.
“There is no room for that. I need you to inspect my leg.”
Chris looked back at her and slowly shifted to get a better view of her leg, which was undoubtedly bruised if nothing else. She had particularly large bluish marks around her knee.
“Pull of my boot, if you will.”
It really wasn't a question. Chris eased off the girl's boot and watched her wiggle her toes in her stocking.
“Now what?” he asked, not sure exactly what she expected of him.
She observed her leg for a moment longer, wriggling her foot around. Then she cocked her head to one side and with a firm nod, she ordered, “Pull on it.”
“What?”
“Like this.”
She grabbed one of his hands and planted it just above her knee, “Now, take ahold of the ankle and pull on it.”
He looked up at her, embarrassed. She grinned back a little sheepishly.
“I have helped O'Mallory enough to know a few tricks. It may relieve the sprain to straighten any twists out. Give it a good, solid pull.”
And he did. She yelped a little.
After a moment, she pulled her stocking back up, flipped her skirt down, and nodded.
“I think that is better.”
They sat there looking at one another in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Chris said, “I am going to crawl out and see what there is to see.”
She nodded. Chris slid out of their hiding place and stopped dead. The soles of his shoes were still visible to the Colonel's daughter.
Before him was a burnt out camp. Dead men in blue and buff, buckskin, and red littered the clearing. Dead horses and mules added to the abysmal scene. Most disconcerting though, was the live men moving about, upright, with muskets shouldered against blood red uniforms. Pickets...guards...this area was not safe for a Colonial soldier...and a girl.
Chris wormed back in and one look at is face and the girl knew it was trouble.
“We have to get out of here—as quietly as possible.”
She nodded and together they started to cautiously crawl away from what only yesterday morning had been a thriving Continental army camp.
As they moved along, Chris' brain thrummed with activity trying to think what their next move should be. He knew woods well and wasn't overly worried about starvation—even without a firearm, but where to go once they got out of the woods preyed on his mind. Finally it dawned on him that the Colonel's daughter might have some idea as to where they should head next.
When they paused in their travels to rest, Chris rolled over on his back and looked the girl over. She was sitting against a tree, picking leaves and twigs out of her hair. She really was a likely lass, as O'Mallory had said—but he would prefer it if she was as helpful as she were pretty.
“I have been thinking,” Chris began.
“Good. So have I.”
Biting back irritation, Chris began again, “I have been thinking about where we should be headed. I can get us around in the woods well enough, but I do not know where the army might head to regroup. Being the Colonel's daughter, I thought you might have some ideas?”
She smiled a little sadly, “Colletville, perhaps? I cannot rejoin the army anyway...because...”
She looked out through the trees absently.
“Because?” Chris prompted, surprised.
She drug her gaze out of nothingness and looked at him, “Yes. Because my father was killed. He was all I have. My mother died when I was born and I have no relatives...but one.”
Her face wrinkled slightly.
To Chris' questioning glance, she retorted, “My uncle. He's a Tory.”
Chris understood the fix she was in and also suddenly understood why a girl of sixteen would ride with the army the way she had. He shifted positions.
“Friends?”
“The Alexanders in Charlotte. They would take me.”
Mind made up, Chris sat up.
“Very well, we go to Charlotte first and then I'll find the army and rejoin.”
“But they might shoot you for a deserter if you wait to rejoin them!”
“What if you wrote a letter explaining the circumstances?”
She took the suggestion thoughtfully.
“Or, if we find the army first, you might get leave—you are hurt after all—to escort me the rest of the way to Charlotte.”
“They'd want to give you an officer instead of a private,” Chris pointed out, somehow perturbed by the idea.
The girl smiled as though to herself and started to get up. Chris hopped up and helped her the rest of the way to her feet. The leg was clearly giving her some trouble, but she was not complaining.
~ ~ ~ ~
It was dark again. Chris didn't dare start a fire and neither did he wish to offer raw rabbit to the Colonel's daughter. She looked at him expectantly as he stood there, a small rabbit dangling from his hand.
“Dinner?”
He sighed, “Only if you don't mind raw meat.”
She grinned, “I'm hungry enough.”
Neither one would have claimed it to be the best meal they had ever eaten, but food was food—even if it was raw rabbit.
Morning dawned on them—Chris laying flat on his back, oblivious that the girl had tried to cover him with the extra expanse of her skirt. She lay curled in a ball with her back against his arm, her skirt spread out over one of his legs. It was a pitiful picture. Blue and red, blood and dirt. Two young people hurt and hungry.
She woke first and sat up smacking wildly at an insect traipsing across her face. Chris woke to his companion slapping herself and he could not help laughing. She glared at him, a self-inflicted red mark across her cheek adding to her ferociousness.
It took them only a few minutes to get their major kinks worked out as they headed out, following the road they had come to around dark the evening before. They kept close to the edge, ready at any moment to dive into the woods.
It was an unnecessary precaution as they did not meet another living soul all morning. Around noon, they arrived at a cross-roads. Chris looked hard at the signs, struggling to read them....then stared at the Colonel's daughter.
She was standing in the middle of the road, eyes closed, fingers alternately pressed against her forehead and tracing lines in the air.
“Yes...yes...” she murmured.
“Well?”
She seemed to come out of a trance.
“Oh. I was looking at the maps in my head. Charlotte is roughly seventy miles that way.”
She gestured with her left hand to the south east.
“Well, let's go.”
Chris collected himself up to stride off, when she grabbed his arm.
“But Colletville is only about twenty miles that way.”
She pointed north east.
Chris ran his fingers through his hair and bit his lip. His own neck would be safer if he rejoined the army as soon as possible—but what if they weren't in Colletville after all? It would be wasted time when he could have gotten a good way down the road to having the Colonel's daughter to safety. Making up his mind, he took her elbow and pointed her down the road toward Charlotte.
“We're going to Charlotte.”
~ ~ ~ ~
It took Chris and the Colonel's daughter a week to reach Charlotte. The countyside seemed strangely empty and while they did pass a few farmers, they only received odd looks and were passed by.
Food was scarce. As neither Chris or the girl had any money, buying food was out of the question. They survived on the wild things that Chris either gathered or killed.
At last Charlotte was in view—and with it—the army.
By late afternoon, the two young people had arrived at the home of the Alexanders. It was a shock for the cultured Alexanders to see the daughter of a well-respected colonel not only dirty and injured, but clinging contentedly to the arm of a rough backwoods private. They graciously refrained from any show of disapproval and welcomed both into the house for an opportunity to refresh themselves and eat. Mr. Alexander immediately sent off for the family doctor to look at Chris' wounds. Amazingly, neither were infected and both were healing well.
The following day, Chris bade farewell to the Alexanders and the Colonel's daughter and headed stoutly back to the army.
As they watched him march away, Mrs. Alexander put an arm around the girl's shoulder, “Claire, he's a fine young man.”
Claire leaned her head on the older woman's shoulder and smiled with pride and sadness co-mingled.
~ ~ ~ ~
The war was over. The cheering was deafening as the men celebrated the end of eight long years of fighting and the prospect of going home to their families.
Chris stood off by himself. He was older now, and the scar across his face which he had received from a British officer's saber only enhanced the effect.
Suddenly, through the shouting and the joyful popping of musketry, he heard the thrum of horses hooves. Turning his head, he saw the oversized blue jacket with corporal stripes flapping in the breeze and the red woolen skirt fluttering in the wind.
It couldn't be. She couldn't be here. No. She shouldn't be here. His mind was playing tricks on him because he'd been reading her letter....
The horse and rider skidded to a stop abreast of the young sergeant. Chris looked up, straight into a pair of brown eyes.
Claire, the Colonel's daughter, flung herself of her horse and into the arms of a rough, backwoods soldier.