To the Hessian Hills Ch. 04

"Why?" Johann asked, it coming out in a low whine. He had thought he couldn't be any more a prisoner, of this country and this man, than he already was. But he obviously had been wrong.

"You will wear this at night, unless the surgeon has called you for night duty. You can still move—in a hobble—but you cannot run. The camp is chaotic after the battle and we took far too many British and Hessian prisoners. Escape is easy. Even many of the colonial soldiers are falsely considering the fighting over and are leaving to return to their farms. Desertion is rampant here. But you will not desert me."

It was like the iron doors of a prison cell clanging shut on Johann. He hadn't thought of escape before. Where, in this wild, unknown land would he escape to? But he certainly was going to become fixated on escape now.

At least, Johann thought, as he rolled onto his side and Lawrence dropped to the mat behind him and went into a snoring sleep almost immediately, with the hobble, the sexual assaulting would be over for the night.

But he couldn't even count on that. Not long before dawn, Lawrence nudged Johann over onto his belly, brought his body down on top of the young Hessian, and, encasing Johann's hobbled legs between his own powerful thighs, entered Johann's ass with a perpetually hard cock and rode him to a final, heavy breathing, cry of victory ejaculation. Celebrating the first, taxing night he had the Hessian under his "protection."

* * * *

"We will move to the man on that table over there next," the surgeon said, pushing the back of his hand across his forehead in weariness. "I have taken care of the bullet wound in the arm already, but the crushed leg is another matter. It's probably best for him that I take it off." The weariness of such decisions—being challenged and then made—was clear in the surgeons tired, resigned voice.

Johann looked out to the entrance of the surgery tent to see if Lawrence was still there. On this, his second day as a prisoner of war, Johann was almost relieved to see that the soldier was still standing there, on guard, and glancing at him periodically. And he felt safe here in the tent, where the surgeon was kind to him.

In just getting a breakfast and then moving to the medical tents, Johann had found that it was advantageous to have a possessive protector. The camp was in chaos, the colonialists still celebrating their victory and some of them mistreating and beating their prisoners. More than one soldier had sauntered up to Johann—often not alone—and had started to suggest what they were going to do with him. It seems the whole camp knew that Johann had been servicing his superior officer and now did the same for Lawrence. Johann had a natural magnetism for men who wanted to couple with other men, and he might not have lasted the morning if the formidable Lawrence had not been there to knock heads and cry off the men who might otherwise have carried Johann off into the woods and not returned with him.

"Over here, now," the surgeon called out to Johann from across the tent. "We have a lull now. Otherwise I would not bother with this one at all."

Johann tore his eyes away from Lawrence and hurried over to where the surgeon stood over a soldier lying on a table. And then he did a double take and nearly sank to the ground.

It was August.

"He's only semiconscious," the surgeon said, not catching Johann's reaction, "but hold him down on the table by the shoulders in case he rouses while I'm sawing on the leg."

"Is the amputation really necessary?" Johann asked, barely able to get the words out as choked with emotion as he was. August looked like death warmed over. His head was bandaged but not as heavily bandaged as his arm, from which, Johann remembered, the surgeon had said a bullet had been removed. But his right leg was what was in the worst shape, the flesh torn open almost to the bone all along the thigh.

"It might not have been necessary if I'd gotten to him immediately, but he was only found this morning, they say—by the burial detail. A cannon had tipped over on him and he'd also been shot. And there might be something that could be done if we had the time and the attention to give him. But we don't. There are just too many men here with better chances of living—and of saving their limbs."

"What could be done for him if there was time and available attention?" Johann asked.

The surgeon gave Johann a piercing look. "You care about these men, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," Johann answered. He thought it too revealing to say just how much he cared for August, in particular.

"You are a good lad, Johann," the doctor said, his voice warm despite his wariness. "I declare that you are helping me get through this. The first two days after a battle are always the hardest in the medical tent. Yes, there are poultices that could keep the leg wound from being infected and that could speed the healing."

"And do we have enough of those poultices to spare for him?" Johann persisted.

"Yes, but that's not the issue. We don't have the attention available to give him. The poultices would have to be changed regularly. Not through the night, but during the day. He has a fever too; he would need cool water applied to his brow. And his bandages would have to changed frequently. We just don't—"

"What if I worked extra time to give him the attention he needed?"

The surgeon looked sharply at Johann. "Do you know this man? He's a Hessian, like you. Is this man a friend of yours?"

"He is more than that to me," Johann said meekly, tears in his eye.

"Ah," the surgeon said, looking up to where Lawrence stood at the entrance of the tent. It was obvious that he knew Lawrence well and it had been obvious over the previous day that he didn't like Lawrence much. But he had been kindly toward Johann. There didn't seem to be much that he had missed in the relationship between Lawrence and Johann.

"I understand. I doubt that you know how well I understand. I will assign you extra duty time to this patient, then," he said. "I will let everyone who needs to know . . ." and here he looked up at Lawrence again ". . . that you will have to spend extra time with this patient. I cannot say whether we will save his leg or not—or even his life—but if you want to try, I will let you and I will say I have ordered it."

"Thank you," Johann said. And then, hesitatingly, he continued. "And if there is anything you want from me, I will gladly—"

"All men weren't put upon this earth to take advantage of you, young man," the surgeon answer somewhat stiffly. "I hope that someday you will be able to understand and appreciate that. Until then, I recognize you do what you have to do to survive. I will not call upon you for favor, although in other circumstances, perhaps . . . because I have known and taken favors of young men in my day. I will not deny that. And you—you're—"

"I think I knew you fancied me," Johann said. "You've been very kind to me. And when you've touched me with your hand when I've passed you surgical instruments . . . well, I too—"

"I will not take advantage of that. Caring for your friend will not hinge on that."

"Nonetheless, I would show my gratitude—whether or not August survives—and I have little else I can use to show it. I would be honored—"

"I will bring the poultice to you," the surgeon said, turning away from Johann to cut off the conversation.

August had begun to stir at that point. He remained semiconscious, though, through the day and into the early evening while Johann came to him and attended to him whenever there was a break in the routine of working with the surgeon on other men.

That first night would be crucial, the surgeon said. And even as weary as he was, after he had had a few hours of sleep in his own tent, he returned and sat in vigil over August with Johann for the rest of the night. At some point as they sat beside the cot, Johann took the surgeon's hand in his. The surgeon didn't withdraw it.

In the next week, the two men, Johann and the surgeon, who now favored Johann above all others to assist him, worked side by side, quickly and expertly, saving as many of the men brought to them as possible—and keeping them as whole as possible. The surgeon seemed to have found renewed energy and purpose from Johann's plea for August and his willingness to sacrifice to save his friend.

Eight days later, as darkness started to fall, the surgeon declared the crisis with August over. The surgeries that were needed that day had come at an end. There had been fewer and fewer surgeries as the week wore on and more post-operation care. Despite the reduced workload, the surgeon looked exhausted. The weariness had been accumulating over the week and a half.

"Find something that Lawrence needs to do somewhere else in the camp for an hour," Johann whispered to the surgeon while he kept an eye on the entrance of the tent to check on Lawrence.

"I don't understand . . . why—?"

"Is your tent nearby?" Johann asked.

Then the surgeon did understand. "I have to give a report at the end of the work day and the general's tent is across the camp. I can assign Lawrence to deliver the report. He will be pleased and I will be relieved regardless of what else happens. He will have to give the report verbally, so it will take time for him to deliver it."

When they were alone in the surgeon's tent, the doctor sat down on a straight chair, his trousers now off and his white, blood-stained surgical coat pulled away from his body while Johann knelt in front of him and sucked his cock. When the surgeon was engorged, Johann lowered his body on the surgeon's lap, facing him, descended his channel on the surgeon's hard cock, and did all of the work in giving the surgeon a much-appreciated relieving flow.

"You didn't have to . . ." the surgeon murmured afterward as Johann embraced the doctor's head, pulling it into his chest so that the surgeon could play Johann's nipples with his tongue.

"Many are the men who have taken this from me," Johann said. "You would not, so, in gratitude for trying to save my friend and all of the other patients, I give this to you freely. Any time you want to send Lawrence away from me, I am willing to ride your staff. You just need to be very careful of Lawrence."

"I know; I will be," the surgeon whispered, not just speaking of Lawrence but acknowledging that he would want Johann again.

* * * *

It was a couple of days before August realized that it was Johann who was tending to him, and when he did, he suddenly seemed to acquire the will to live—and to do everything he could to be whole.

Lawrence watched Johann with an eagle eye and normally could not have failed to discern that there was some attachment between the two. But the surgeon did what he could to shield the way Johann and August interacted from Lawrence. And he also found plenty of opportunities to send Lawrence on time-consuming errands at the other side of the camp. And, as the needs for surgery over the next few weeks lessened, he had more energy left over at the end of the day, so that not far into the arrangement he was riding Johann's ass rather than the young man riding his cock.

As August recovered, he grew more needy of sexual attention too. Johann made a science of giving August hand jobs under the bed sheeting even with Lawrence standing at the tent entrance and of stealing kisses with his lover when Lawrence wasn't looking.

August eventually was well enough to be moved from the surgery tent. It was the surgeon's suggestion that August be moved to his tent so, he said, that he could give the young Hessian artillery man the attention he needed. But it was mainly Johann who, while the surgeon had sent Lawrence off on a mission, gave August attention, with August lying on his back on a mat by the surgeon's cot, Johann straddling his hips and riding his cock, and the surgeon sitting patiently on the side of his cot, cock in hand, watching the coupling between August and Johann, and waiting his turn with Johann.

If Lawrence suspected anything—other than not being happy with the special attention Johann was giving one patient, even though the surgeon said he demanded it—it only showed in his continued possessiveness of Johann and the roughness of his fucking in the hours that the surgeon could no longer hold Johann at work. It was true that, as the weeks went on, the coupling between Johann and Lawrence settled down to be less frenetic and demanding. But the demand for sex at least once every night and often twice was enough, on top of the sex Johann was having with August and the surgeon, to keep Johann exhausted.

But Johann didn't care. It all was worth it to him. At least it was until the surgeon couldn't hold August anymore and August had to hobble off, his right leg saved but never again to be whole, to join the general population of the Hessian prisoners.

One night after Lawrence had exercised his fucking rights and he and Johann were lying, stretched against each other and cooling down, Johann asked. "How long are we going to be here, Lawrence? Why is nothing happening with us? Do you know?"

"What I do know," Lawrence answered, "is that our leaders are in a quandary. There are just too many of you British and Hessian prisoners here. The British soldiers will be imprisoned somehow for the duration of the war, if the British can't free them. But you Hessians. You are mercenaries. Always before now, mercenary soldiers who have been captured in war would be sent back to their home countries on the understanding they never would return."

"I'd be transported back to Germany?" Johann asked.

"Normally you would be, yes," Lawrence answered.

August and him sent back to Germany? That wouldn't be so bad. He would have August to protect him then. They could restart a life together. And they wouldn't have to return to Lüneburg, where Johann would face complications. But Lawrence had said "normally."

"Normally?" you said. "So why not—?"

"We—we Americans—have realized that you Hessians aren't staying in Germany when we send you back. You are signing up with the British again and coming right back to fight."

"So?"

"So, my guess is that you will be interned for the duration of the war too."

"Away from you?" Johann did his best not to make that sound cheery.

"It won't come to that for you," Lawrence said. "If I am not assigned to stay with you, I will find a way for you to escape and come home to Pennsylvania with me. Men are leaving from here every day. We are not receiving pay, and men are becoming restless here. Some are brought back because they are lost for where to go. But I would know where you were going. I don't mind sticking with this job, though. I enjoy being a soldier."

"Ah," Johann whispered. Of course, any plans he'd ever entertained of escaping had not materialized—but not only because he would be lost on where to go to—if anywhere but with Lawrence—but also because he now could not go without August. And with August's leg the way it was, it would be very difficult for them to escape.

"But would we just be interned here?" he asked.

"Not likely," Lawrence said. He was playing Johann's body again with his hands. This was going to be a two-fuck night, Johann realized, with a sigh of resignation. He reached back to grasp Lawrence's cock—hard again, as Johann knew it would be—and to move it into position. He had to be careful to keep Lawrence from suspecting that he was getting sex from anyone else; he had to continue to make believe that Lawrence was the only one and that Johann welcomed his attentions. Of course, Lawrence was an excellent lover, if one wanted it hard and rough, so Johann didn't have to do a lot of acting that he welcomed Lawrence's cocking.

"We are too close here to territories the British hold," Lawrence continued. "My guess is that we'll move from here—and soon."

Lawrence's guess was right. Within another month, In March of 1778, the British and Hessian soldiers, the Hessians still under the command of Baron Riedesel, were on the move to the northwest, to the area of Boston, where they were settled until the winter of 1778, long enough for them to be organized in trades to benefit the colonialist of Massachusetts Colony. It was an uneasy solution, though. Massachusetts was never enthusiastic at having so many prisoners of war in their keeping, and Boston was still too near New York City, which remained occupied by the British. There was constant danger of an attempt to break the prisoners free.

No one who went to the Boston area with the captives that early spring presumed they would be staying there for very long.