Dewey Lambdin: The French Admiral

"Ya thank that'll end the fightin?" she asked. "Six month ago, ah'd've been glad ta see people stop akillin' each other. Nouh, all ya sailors'll go back ta England an' the troops, too. That'll be bad for business. Pooh, ah'll never save up enough ta get ta London."

"But with peace, Charlestown will be bustling again, and there still will be a garrison," Alan said, accepting another glass of the wine. It was beginning to taste pleasant, too pleasant, and he vowed to make it his last until the stirrup cup at the door, or they would go back aboard half foxed and Treghues would be furious. "I wager you could get five guineas for your services and go home rich as Moll Flanders."

"Jus' as long as ah don't never have ta go back ta the Piedmont," she said, growing a little sad. She snuggled up closer beside him to throw a leg over and hug him close. "God, hit wuz horrible up there."

Here comes the sympathy plea, Alan thought sourly. Never knew a whore yet who wouldn't try to weep you out of more money.

"I've heard tales about how partisan the fighting was."

"Not jus' the fightin', Alan," she said into his shoulder. "Iver been upta the back country?"

"No."

"Hit's this rebellion," she said. "Won't leave nobody alone. Ya gotta be fer one side er t'other nouh. Neighbors turnin' agin each other, burnin' each other out fer spaht. Rebels aburnin' out Tories, Tories raidin' Rebels, the Regulators runnin' round makin' people choose the Rebels're die. An' when they fight, they don't take prisoners no more. Maybe some o' the reg'lar troops still do, but mosta the militia on both sides jus' shoot 'em all. Iver hear tell o' Tarleton's Quarter?"

"I've barely heard of this Tarleton. Cavalry, isn't he?" Alan sighed, shifting to a more comfortable position in the sticky heat.

"They wuz a fight at Waxhaws, an' Tarleton had 'em beat, an' the Rebels raised white flags fer quarter, but the Legion tore 'em apart anyways and kilt most of 'em. After that, the Rebels started doin' the same. Hit's been Tidewater people agin Piedmont, Rebel or Tory, rich agin pore, Regulators agin King's men—nobody's safe no more up thar. When Clinton took Chawlst'n last year, hit seemed the safest place. We wuz taggin' with the Legion, me an' Momma. Come hyuh where we could be safe, an' be took keer of lahk real ladies, not Piedmont hill trash. Cayn't blame me fer wantin' that, nouh kin ya, ner wantin' away from all that warrin'?"

She raised her head and looked him in the eyes. "You better kill them Frogs're the Rebels'll come back ta take Chawlst'n, er they'll be blood in the streets afore they through with the Tidewater Tories, an' all who serve 'em."

"Surely not a poor young whore with no politics?" Alan teased.

"Hey, hit's no skin offa yore ass," she heated up suddenly, angry at being belittled. "Yore out at sea, where they fight clean. You hain't seen yore neighbors laid out lahk daid hawgs jus' 'cause they give food an' shelter ta Rebels that woulda looted 'em iffen they hadn't. Er seen another fam'ly burned out the next naght when the Rebels come back ta get even with whatever people they thought wuz the closest Tories. Rich dumb-butts lahk you kin call it a war, but hit ain't nothin' but murderin'."

"Take it easy, now, 'twas not my doing," Alan said softly.

"Mah folks didn' want no part of hit," she said, now in full cry with tears beginning to streak her face. "We jus' wanted ta be left alone. But first one side an' then t'other come around atellin' us ta choose up sides er die."

"Time I was going," Alan said, rising to dress.

"Goddamn you," she cried, punching him in the chest. "Mah daddy got hung by a pack o' scum said he was fer King George, jus' 'cause he paid part o' what he owed in tax when the King's man come round with a sword ta make him pay up. Wouldn't even listen to him. An' not a month later we got burned out an' lost ever'thin' 'cause a lyin' dog Regulator got caught an' give our name ta the Tory militia. But hit don't bother the lahks o' you none, does it? Well, you jus' go on an' get yer blueblood arse kilt, an' ah only wish ta God hit wuz yore fam'ly sufferin'."

She collapsed in tears, flinging herself back onto the bed, and sobbed into a pillow to muffle her distress or to hide her lack of real tears. Alan wasn't sure which. Alan picked up his shirt from the floor and started to put it on over his head, but stopped to look down on her bare body as she wept.

Damme, I'm a foolish cully to be taken in like this, he thought, knowing that he should walk out and leave her to her tears, but moved all the same, no matter how stupid he considered himself to fall for a whore's story. He dropped the shirt and sat down on the bed to stroke her back. She hissed something unintelligible at him, but he persisted until she turned to him and took refuge in his arms, wetting his chest with real tears and snuffling and hiccuping with remembered terror and sadness.

"There, there," he said, rocking her gently like a child. God, what if she is telling the truth about what happened? Never let it be said of me that I had a lick of sense when it came to women, especially when they spring a leak, he told himself. Maybe part of her tale is real and not some plea for an extra shilling or two. I'd not like to be back in those wilds with every hand turned against me, either.

"There, there," he soothed, stroking her back and keeping her close and snug until her sobs became less powerful.

"Hey, ahm sorry," she whispered, snuffling. "Ah don't want ya ta get kilt, ah didn't mean that. Hit's jus'…"

"Well, I don't want to get killed, either," he said, and she shrugged in sad mirth against him. "No harm done. Tell me about it."

"Las' thang ah thought ah'd iver do's become a whore," she sniffed, now bereft of strong emotion, almost flat in tone. "Thought ah'd marry one o' the neighbor boys. Didn't know which yit, but that's the way o' thangs. He'd run a farm er a store, an' we'd have babies an' live a normal life, ya know? My daddy'd live a good long lahf, an' my momma wouldn't be owin' ever' meal ta the next man with silver, Rebel er Tory. Me, either."

"I am sorry things turned out this way," Alan said gently, feeling that he meant it, for all his native cynicism. He drew her back down on the bed where she nestled to him like a little girl.

"We weren't rich er nothin', jus' makin' hit from crop ta crop, same's ever'body else," she said in a tiny voice. "When they burned us out, we lost hit all, jus' the clothes we stood up in an' some stuff airin' on the line 'stead of in the cabin. Half the people wuz agin us 'cause they thought we wuz Tories after they hung Daddy, rest wuz agin us after what that Regulator said an' we got burned out. Only folks we could take up with wuz the soldiers."

"And you started following the army," he said.

"First off twuz Rebels." She shrugged. "They took us in over what happened on our farm, but they wuz chased all over hell an' we couldn't keep up, an' all we got wuz sore feet an' pore rations. Then the good people called us whores anyways, an' wouldn't give us a bye yore leave. Called us pore trash't needed runnin' from one parish ta n'other."

"Save us all from the smugly moral," Alan said, minding Treghues.

"Ran inta Tarleton's Legion an' took up with them, got a warsh tub an' some soap ta earn our keep, but soldiers never have much money, not rankers, noways. Told us we couldn't stay less'n we wuz doing more'n takin' in warsh."

"You and your mother?" Alan said.

"Momma weren't that old. Had me when she wuz sixteen, an' ah wuz the oldes' child. She took up with a foot sergeant who didn't mind the two other kids. Best of a bad deal, he wuz. Ah s'pose she's still with him. Least she's still eatin' well iffen she is, 'cause he's the biggest chicken thief in the Legion. A real hard man, but kind enough."