To the Hessian Hills

It was Lawrence who unwittingly put the three together—he, Johann, and August. He'd known that there was a particular wounded prisoner Johann was assigned to take care of in the medial operations tent in the British encampment after the Battle of Saratoga. And he would have been jealous at Johann paying such close attention to another man, if the surgeon hadn't made the assignment and if Johann hadn't worked double time to take care of Lawrence too. But the hulking American solider had never really focused on who the patient was. If he'd had any inkling, he wouldn't have formed the building team he subsequently did.

He thought that he was the one who added August to the team. He had no idea that Johann and August had a history.

Almost immediately after the final engagement of the Battle of Saratoga, on October 17th, 1777, the Convention of Saratoga had been signed on the disposition of some 5,200 captured British, Hessian, and Canadian soldiers. The Canadians were no problem. Nearly 1,100 strong, they were marched right back into Canada to be confined there on the promise they would not take up arms again. As far as history has told, they honored the commitment. The British and Hessians were another matter, though. It was agreed that they would be repatriated to their home countries on the promise they wouldn't return to fight in America. Within weeks, as order was slowly being recast out of chaos around the Saratoga battlefield, the Americans began to realize that some of the Hessians had been here before—and had been captured before and sent back to Germany on the promise they would stay there. But they hadn't stayed home.

Trust that they would honor the Convention of Saratoga provisions evaporated.

Thus, the decision was made to intern the British and Hessian soldiers nearby until the Americans could sort out what to do with them. A contingent of over four thousand men was not something you just tucked into your pocket. It was decided to march them to Cambridge, Massachusetts, near the city of Boston, and to house them in the huts the British had constructed for themselves to occupy during the failed siege of Boston.

Thus, that's where Lawrence and Johann found themselves, still, through Lawrence's efforts, occupying the same hut together, Lawrence still fucking Johann every night, and Johann still enduring the rest of the night hobbled so that he could not escape. Other men were escaping, though, and somehow being absorbed in the fabric of a sparsely populated, workman needy, evolving country trying to form itself into a viable economy.

The interned prisoners weren't left to be idle; they were made to earn their keep. The enterprising Lawrence stepped forward almost immediately to declare himself as a master carpenter and, more welcome, to identify his young personal prisoner as a trained pargeter—an artisan who could bring the decorative house design arts of Europe to the Boston merchants, whose wealth was growing almost as fast as their wish to show it off.

Hence, from the very beginning of the Boston interlude, Lawrence and Johann were brought into the construction of the houses of the wealthy in and around Boston.

"These are excellent designs, and the drawings to specification are proficient," Lawrence said one day while standing with a builder and contemplating the start of a new wing to a Boston shipowner's mansion.

"Yes, we were lucky," the builder answered. "With all of the building going on, competent draftsmen are difficult to find. Luckily, among your Hessian prisoners there was a young man whose family was involved in building construction back in Germany, and he's a fine artist with a good perspective of house design."

"I would like to meet such a man," Lawrence said, the wheels already spinning in his mind on how he could put such a man together with Johann and him to form a highly desirable triad.

"You're in luck, then," the builder said. "The young man is just next door drawing up plans for a merchant's house. And there he is now." the builder raised his voice to get the young man's attention. "August, over here, if you will. I have someone who wants to meet you."

It took some time for August to reach them, as he was dragging a still-unwilling leg, but as he drew nearer, his heart began to race. This was the man who had held Johann prisoner. Even though the man hadn't looked at August closely in the medical tent, August had studied in depth the tall and muscular American soldier who had stood sentry at the entrance—and who held August's would-be lover, Johann, in thrall with fear mixed with appreciation for the protectiveness the man's jealously brought.

As the three men talked of building, the builder was called away, leaving just Lawrence and August to continue the conversation.

"I have seen your drawings," Lawrence said, getting right to the point, afraid he would lose the opportunity. "I am the master carpenter on this house. I invite you to examine my work. And you should pay close attention to the plaster work under way in the new dining room. That is the work of my partner, another Hessian prisoner like you. I think you will find his work expert as well. All we need, with all of the opportunity here in Boston, to establish ourselves is a competent draftsman, and we could—"

"Yes. If you are interested in me working with you, the answer is yes."

Lawrence looked surprised that the young Hessian had discerned his meaning and been so quick to respond favorably. He didn't look a gift horse in the mouth, though. He started talking arrangements immediately before this quick-reacting man could begin to think the better of what he'd agreed to.

But August wasn't going to have any second thoughts. He knew the partner Lawrence was referring to would be Johann. He'd been trying to find where Johann was ever since they'd been marched to Boston in the spring. He wasn't about to let this opportunity go by.

That night, after Lawrence had drawn Johann up on all fours, mounted him, and fucked him like a dog and they were lying on the cot, Johann cuddled into Lawrence's body, as usual, Lawrence began telling Johann what he had arranged.

At the mention of August's given name and his skills, Johann understood who Lawrence was talking about and his spirits began to soar. Johann knew of August's family background in building in Germany and also of August's drawing talents. There could not be another Hessian prisoner who Lawrence could be talking about.

"The surprising thing," Lawrence said, "is that the draftsman agreed to the three-way partnership immediately."

Of course he did, Johann thought. But he did no more than grunt to keep Lawrence talking of August.

"So, the arrangement will be fine with you?" Lawrence asked.

Why had he asked? Johann wondered. Lawrence never needed to ask what Johann thought or wanted or would agree to. But then Johann realized that he did have importance to such an arrangement and that Lawrence had spoken of him as a partner. Lawrence realized, if Johann hadn't, that Johann did have power in this matter. He could just not deliver the work. His wasn't work that Lawrence could do. Probably there was no other prisoner in this camp who could do it despite as many and varied as their previous occupations had been. And Johann could also appreciate that Lawrence was slowly mellowing.

Johann had leverage here.

"I will agree on one condition," he whispered.

"Oh, and what is that?" the answer was given in somewhat of a sharp tone. Had Johann gone too far?

"If I am to be a partner in this, you need to trust me more. I want the hobbling at night to stop."

"You will try to run away."

"No, I won't." God, no, I won't, Johann thought—not when there's a chance of me being with August again. "I want to work at my trade. And I want to be fucked by you. Haven't you realized that? I don't plan to go anywhere without you."

"I don't know, I don't think—" The words came out like Lawrence was stunned by what Johann had said. Johann had been working at increasing his freedom since before they came to the Boston area. He'd been especially nice and yielding to Lawrence—starting from when he was trying to hide that he also was being fucked by the surgeon and August in Saratoga. Lawrence hadn't noticed. With Lawrence, everything was about getting off himself. He had just taken and taken and not noticed that Johann had been increasingly compliant. In Saratoga that had worked to Johann's benefit. But Johann wanted change. He wanted more freedom of action, less jealousy, more trust—even if it was a trust of not knowing what Johann really thought and wanted.

"You don't think that this reveals how much I want you and want to stay with you?" Johann murmured, as he turned toward Lawrence on the cot and scooted down to where he could take the big American's cock in his mouth.

Later, he pushed the groaning soldier over on his back on the cot, mounted his loins, descended on the man's hard cock, and fucked himself on the shaft to a mutual sighing ejaculation.

The hobbles were not shackled on Johann's ankles that night—or in succeeding nights.

* * * *

The fist to Johann's mouth sent him sprawling on the cot and then falling down from there to the floor. Lawrence was on him immediately, pulling him up to a seated position, slapping across his face in one direction and then catching him with a backhand coming back. Johann's eye was beginning to puff up from the fist he'd taken in the eye at the entrance of the tent. Lawrence had beaten him before but nothing like this.

Lawrence unbuttoned the fly of his breeches with one hand while still holding Johann up in a seated position on the floor, with the other gripping the young Hessian's neck. When he presented his cock, a moaning and snuffling Johann opened his mouth to it obediently and in fear of the rampage Lawrence was on.

He knew why Lawrence was on a rampage. Lawrence had seen them. He'd caught August fucking Johann against a wall in a room in a Cambridge mansion under construction. At least he'd caught some man fucking Johann. Lawrence had been with the house's owner at the time and had glimpsed how the merchant's new bedroom was being christened and quickly shown him into another room. When Lawrence had returned, no one was in the first room.

His suspicion was that it had been August, but he couldn't have been sure. He'd already given August a beating, but August hadn't admitted to anything.

Now it was Johann's turn.

Coming down on his knees, he slapped Johann's legs apart, slid his knees under Johann's buttocks, and forced his cock inside the young Hessian's channel. He held Johann's torso elevated with a strong arm around his waist, and Johann just lay back, his eyes staring at the hut wall behind the headboard of the cot, his arms dangling beside him, as he endured the spending of Lawrence's fury. This part of Lawrence's attentions to him was something Johann was well acquainted with.

"Who was that? I know you were the one being fucked," Lawrence growled when he had ejaculated. "Who was fucking you? How long has this been going on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Johann answered, a whine in his voice, fearing what Lawrence would do to August if he was sure it had been him.

Lawrence popped him another one in the mouth. "I know it was you."

Licking blood at the corner of his mouth, Johann tried another tack. "I don't know who he was. He was an American. Not one of the carpenters. He trapped me in the corner of the room and assaulted me. I've never seen him before. I promise."

"I want to know who he was." Lawrence lifted Johann up with the strength of a grip on his throat, which made Johann gag and his eyes to pop out. Lawrence bent him over the bed, encircled the young man's belly with a muscled, hairy arm again and fucked him from the rear.

After that, though, Johann was too spent to give Lawrence the answer he wanted even if Johann had been willing to give up August this side of death.

Lawrence pushed Johann back onto the floor, went over to the corner of the tent, retrieved the hobble, and, with Johann sobbing and panting softly, shackled Johann's ankles again.

"In the end it doesn't matter much," Lawrence growled. "Three days from now we're on the move again. The prisoners are being sent down to Virginia."

"Virginia? Where's that?" Johann queried meekly.

"You don't want to know. Nearly six hundred miles to the south. They are calling it the Convention Army, and you will be walking every step of the way. Possibly some of it in the snow."

Lawrence's prediction proved prophetic. They didn't manage to start out any time close to those three days. When they did begin to march, it already was winter—and an early winter, with snow already falling in the New England colonies.

The only comforts were that Johann was told that Virginia would be warmer and that he was marching alongside August. Lawrence had never gotten beyond the suspicion that it was August he'd caught fucking Johann—although August and Johann had managed to couple several times before Lawrence caught them—but Lawrence didn't want to lose the draftsman corner of the profitable building triad he had formed.

* * * *

Johann didn't just march alongside August; he also supported and dragged along his friend for many miles as they moved south through New York and into Pennsylvania. August's leg would never be useful enough to him to endure a long march on his own anywhere, let along through the freezing snow.

Johann was his crutch.

Increasingly, Lawrence, who walked close to them but who was so much better conditioned for this than either Johann or August was, looked upon the pair with suspicion. The farther they walked, the harder Johann tried to help August move along, to coax him to keep up, the more sure Lawrence became that some bond that was not to his advantage existed between these two Hessians.

Lawrence wanted to quiz—to interrogate—Johann on whether the two had known each other back in Germany before coming here. But he was afraid he didn't want to know the answer. Before their building triad had been formed, Lawrence would have just taken August off into the forest and come back without him. And increasingly, now, Lawrence was speculating on how hard it would be to find a good draftsman in Virginia. He'd heard they were going there because it was a land of rich plantations and that the Virginias were eager to have the carpenters and artisans to build mansions on an even grander scale than the prisoners had built in Boston. Perhaps they had competent draftsmen aplenty there already. The real skill was how straight he could lay a beam and how fashionably Johann could decorate a ceiling with plaster medallions.

The trek down to Virginia was no walk in the park. Of the some thirty-eight hundred British and Hessian prisoners who marched out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, only about twenty-five hundred arrived in the winter of 1778 at what became known as the Hessian Hills some three miles northeast of the central Virginia village of Charlottesville. It was an ironic place for them to be interned for the duration of the Revolutionary War, as the town was named after Charlotte, the wife of the reigning English king, George III—Virginia's enemy in the current war.

The American soldier guards weren't too stringent about preventing escapes along the route; indeed, a good many of them deserted as well. At best, when they saw a prisoner bolt into the forest or across the field next to the road, they'd send a rifle shot in his direction. Very few of the shots went home, though. The guards didn't mind having fewer prisoners to keep track of. They were marching in bitter winter conditions, with scarce rations, and thin clothing. The fewer men, the more necessities of life left for the rest of them.

There were incentives for the prisoners—or at least the half that were Hessians, many of whom had trades before they became soldiers—to drop out along the route. The colonies were struggling to become a nation and most of the Americans were engaged in agriculture. Men with a trade were desirable all along the route for towns that were building their economies. Trades were lucrative too, which meant that young lasses, in search of a better life for themselves, could be seen in wooded areas along the road beckoning to the Hessians.

All of this seemed to have an effect on Lawrence as they walked south, but it wasn't really the escape of the prisoners he was worried about and giving a lot of thought too. It was the possibility that he soon wanted to desert himself—and, of course, take Johann with him. He was getting ever nearer his own farm northeast of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania.

He halfway broached the issue with Johann a couple of times when they were south of New York City, but he hadn't phrased it well. He'd forgotten to mention that August could join them as well—a partnership of three building specialties was still advantageous—but Johann hadn't heard that possibility and had revealed something that diverted Lawrence's mind.

"I won't leave August," he said, flatly, leaving all question of doing so out of the realm of possibility. "He needs me."

Lawrence could easily at that point have said that August could come as well—and could have changed history for the three of them—but he was so taken aback by the vehemence of Johann's answer that the truth of the relationship between Johann and August struck him directly in the face.

He would be damned if August would join them knowing what Lawrence now fully realized.

And so, they walked beyond Philadelphia. But they hadn't gotten much farther than that when August could go no further. He just folded himself down in a snow bank at the side of the road and murmured, "Sorry, Johann. I can't, just can't anymore."

Johann knelt down and encircled August's shoulders in his arm. It was cold enough that a man had to keep moving to keep warm enough to survive.

"You must, August. I'll carry you."

"You can't," August said wearily. "I'm just so tired. You have to keep up. Just leave me here."

"You know I won't just—"

He got no further with that, though, because Lawrence had come upon them and was reaching down and pulling Johann away.

"He's spent, Lad. We've all known since New York that he wasn't going to make it. It's over."

"No!" It came out of Johann in a long, drawn-out scream of anguish. But Lawrence paid him no heed. He was carrying Johann away in the direction of the march.

"Please, for me. Leave me to rest," August called out in a weak voice. He trailed off in a declaration of love, but it's doubtful that Johann even heard what he said before that.

They had gone some distance, over a hill, when Johann heard a shot. They weren't rare these days, and they could mean almost anything, but it was enough for Johann to collapse in Lawrence's arms and stop his struggles. Such shots sometimes were an act of mercy for a prisoner who, indeed, just could not continue on the march to the point of laboring for his last breath.

All Johann wanted to do at that moment was for Lawrence to let loose of him and let him sink into the snow bank to die as well. But he felt Lawrence's grip tighten on him, and Lawrence moved to the side of the road as men behind them yelled for the soldiers on the road to make way for a wagon, and he felt himself holding on tight to Lawrence. His natural instincts were to survive. He had endured so much and was still living. He knew that dying would not be this easy for him.