Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory Read Online Free Page A

back and out of the guts of the man he had just impaled.
    He was a veteran of half a dozen skirmishes and two major battles, but until this moment he had never really known if he had killed a man. This time the evidence was before him, so close that the convulsive screams of his victim, and the vomitted blood splashed into Allen’s face.
    He had stormed into the rebel camp at the front of the charge, trying to keep pace with André. And then this man, this man he was killing, came bolting out of a wigwam and all but thrust himself straight onto Allen’s sword in his blind panic.
    The man’s eyes shone in the moonlight, wide, terrified, his open mouth a black hole contorted by his screams.
    With one hand he clutched Allen’s jacket, with the other he feebly waved a knife about; with one slash reopened a wound on Allen’s left arm. While still clutching the hilt of his sword with his right hand, Allen used his left to grasp the arm that (or) which was holding the blade. It was like trying to restrain a child, there was no strength in his enemy now, just a terrifying gasping as he started to sag, but the blade was still lodged in the man’s stomach, and, try as he could, he could not extract it.
    He was screaming as well, cursing, crying, oblivious to all that was around him until he saw André striding toward him, pistol raised and cocked.
    The dying rebel saw him as well, and now tried to push back from Allen, whimpering, his cries like that of a girl, which filled Allen with even more horror, till he wondered if indeed his victim was a woman caught up in this madness.
    André pressed the pistol to the man’s brow and pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening, the ball tore off the top of the skull. The body collapsed, and André put his foot on the man’s chest and, grabbing hold of Allen’s right wrist, pulled back hard.
    The blade slipped out with a grating noise of steel against bone.
    “Never thrust upwards into the chest!” André shouted, “The blade usually gets stuck.”
    Allen stood there dumbstruck, looking down at the mutilated body.
    “Come on!” André shouted, grabbing Allen by the shoulder, “keep moving or it will be you that gets it.”
    He had seen many a man die in this last year but this was the first time that he had looked into the eyes of someone he was killing, the first time blood had been coughed into his face. A sudden wave of nausea flooded his body as he choked back the taste of vomit in his throat.
    “Come on!” André screamed, urging him along.
    A wigwam shelter set into the woods was ablaze. Men were inside, screaming in anguish, while at the entry half a dozen light infantrymen stood with bayonets poised, shouting for them to come out. One man burst out and thelight infantry fell upon him, stabbing and stabbing again. Another came out to the same terror.
    Two more tried to fight their way out and were slaughtered in turn.
    “For God’s sake,” Allen screamed. “Prisoners.”
    His cry was ignored as the light infantry stood ready, taunting the men who were burning inside to come out.
    “Stop them!” Allen cried. He started to run over, but André grabbed him.
    “You can’t stop it!” André shouted. “Their blood is up! You can’t stop it.”
    Allen, dumbfounded, looked around as dozens of wigwams burned, and at nearly every one, men were fighting with terrible desperation to escape.
    All was mad confusion, light infantry, dragoons, a solid line of the Black Watch swarming into the encampment, while hundreds of rebels ran in every direction. Here and there fragments of companies and regiments tried to rally, one man group (or “regiment”) even managed to fire off a ragged volley before being swarmed under.
    With Grey’s order of no musket flints, the attackers could not form into volley lines but instead absolutely had to press forward. The injunction had been meant to insure that no weapon was accidentally discharged, thus spoiling the surprise, but Allen