To the Hessian Hills

"Hey, you, soldier. Come with me."

"

Mich

. . . I mean me?" Johann answered. He'd learned to speak English fairly well in the more than a year that it took him to move from New York City, to Canada, and then back down here to Saratoga. But sometimes he didn't think and reverted to German.

"Yes, you. You're being reassigned. By me. Get whatever gear you have and come with me."

It was the afternoon of the day Johann and his entire garrison had surrendered to the colonialist. The American soldier who stood before him was a rough, seasoned man perhaps in his thirties. His uniform was probably more worn than Johann's was. But then, he probably had seen battle the previous day and Johann hadn't.

He didn't appear to be a man of any rank, but he was an American soldier, and Johann was now a prisoner of war. Any American soldier outranked him. The other American soldiers who had been ready to march off the unit of Hessians Johann was with didn't seem to mind this man, looking quite capable, separating out one of the prisoners for other duties, so Johann just shrugged, went back into the compound to retrieve his bedroll, and followed behind the soldier toward what had been the bivouac area of the British encampment.

"My name is Lawrence," the man said gruffly as they started to walk out. "From here you are my personal prisoner."

"I'm called Johann," the young Hessian answered. He wasn't in a position to choose whose prisoner he was going to be. He didn't mind too much that it was this man, though. He was tall and muscular—on the thin side, but then all soldiers, on both sides of the fighting, were now on the thin side. Strong-looking hands, though, and he strode out with assurance.

"I know what your name is," he said, again almost a growl. They were still walking toward the British bivouac area, but not exactly directly there, more toward the woods that abutted the encampment on one side.

What was with this? Johann wondered. He hadn't been selected out of the prisoner detail back there by coincidence?

"Do you know what I just saved you from?" Lawrence asked.

"Saved me from?"

"Do you know what that detail you were in was forming up to do? Where it was going?"

"No. They told us nothing." He was a prisoner on enemy-controlled soil now, a whole ocean away from his own country. He was resigned not to being told what he would or could do. In truth the British hadn't treated the Hessians much better, and his own captain had treated him far worse.

"Those men were being taken to yesterday's battlefield—to bury the dead. It's a grizzly task, I can tell you. Not one that someone as pretty and delicate as you would want to have to do."

The American had a hand on Johann's buttocks now as he guided him along toward the wooden section. It didn't take much imagination for Johann to discern what the man's interest was. Yes, Johann was smaller than most of the men and didn't look as manly. And, yes, men had seen that as some sort of signal of interest and availability. And, yes, more often than not Johann had just given in to them. But. . . . Johann was having difficulty in coming up with the "but" of that. He sighed in resignation and trooped along in the American soldier's wake.

"You should be grateful to me for saving you from that. I do have other duties I was told to find one of the Hessians for. They are much lighter duties than you would have found out on the battlefield. You should be grateful for that too. You can show me your gratitude in just a bit . . . before we report to the medical tents."

"How do you—?" Johann started to ask, but Lawrence anticipated the question.

"I have certain needs. I had someone serving those needs, but your British friends put a bullet through his gut yesterday. I need comforting. And not just for today. I asked around among you Hessians. They said you were the one who serviced your unit's captain—that Hessian soldier who got shot last night. They said you were his fuck toy."

"Oh," was all Johann could say. Lawrence was moving in closer to him, nearly carrying him along, toward the tree line.

"You gonna be my willing hole without giving me a struggle or trouble? Your man is gone now. I can give you protection and a better deal than your Hessian friends will be receiving. I'm head of the guards at the medical tents, where you are going to work. You be good to me and I'll be good to you."

They had reached the trees and were moving deeper into the foliage. Lawrence stopped them in a mossy-ground bowl between four trees, with bushes enough around the trees to hide them from view of any casual soldier passing by even within a few steps.

"You going to give it to me without a fight? You going to be good to me?" Lawrence repeated in a low, gravelly voice, as he pushed Johann down in front of him and unbuttoned the fly of his breeches.

Johann was very good to him. Lawrence voiced his pleasure of how expertly Johann sucked his cock. And then Lawrence showed Johann how expert he was in pushing Johann onto his back on the moss, crouching between his legs, lifting and spreading Johann's legs, working his hard cock into the young Hessian's channel, and then pounding away inside him, turning him after an eternity onto all fours, mounting him again, and pounding him some more.

* * * *

Lawrence turned a hobbling and subdued Johann over to a weary-expressioned middle-aged man in a white coat splattered with blood at the entrance of one of the larger tents in what had been the British encampment. Johann could hear moaning and screaming coming from inside the tent.

"You took your time in finding help," the doctor said peevishly to Lawrence.

"It took time to find a German who had any experience in being an orderly," Lawrence mumbled.

"And do you have experience taking care of wounded men? And do you know enough English not to be slow in following directions?" These questions were addressed by the doctor to Johann.

Johann looked at Lawrence. Obviously, Lawrence wanted him to answer in the affirmative. He had no experience with wounded men, but he had taken care of the captain, so he had experience as an orderly and in dressing and cleaning up after a man. And in lying under him too, he thought bitterly. Lawrence was gripping his arm in a very possessive way. For a few brief hours after Reinhart had been shot, as evil as that might have been, Johann had felt strangely free. He didn't feel free now. Lawrence fucked every bit as brutally and impersonally as Reinhart had done. And he seemed just as possessive.

"Yes sir, I have experience as an orderly." he answered. That was true as far as it went. "And I think I speak English well enough."

"Good, then. You will start in the operating tent. If you can take that, you can handle anything else that is required here."

For the rest of the day, Johann assisted in the operation tent under the most primitive of medical conditions. Most of what he was asked to do was to help hold a wounded soldier down—the anesthetics for officers consisted of rum or brandy and for enlisted men a stick to bite down on—while doctors worked on their wounds. There were so many men needing operations, American, British, and Hessian soldiers all jumbled together democratically with the only priority other than immediate need being given to officers, that only the most salvageable cases were given close attention. And even among these, the quickest response seemed to be to lop off an offending limb rather than trying to save it.

Johann felt like he was in hell. But what kept revolving over and over in his mind was the doctor's remark that this would be the worst he would see and Lawrence's declaration that it was much better than if he had been left to the task of finding and burying the dead on the battlefield. Johann would have questioned the latter supposition, but he knew that the Hessian artillery had been at the center of the battlefield and he didn't think he could have endured finding August's mangled body among the rest of the dead.

The surgeon was patient with Johann, giving him a reassuring smile from time to time and telling him he was doing well. He even patted him on the forearm or back occasionally and encouraging him to keep up his spirits for just a few more hours—as encouragement to the wounded and frightened soldiers going under the scalpel.

"It will become easier as the days progress," the surgeon said, "Unless and until, of course, there is another battle."

All day Lawrence stood guard at the entrance to the tent, looking in occasionally as if to assure himself that Johann was still there. Johann was ever aware of the hulking American's presence and he didn't once forget that he now wasn't just a prisoner of war of the Americans but also, more specifically and ominously, the prisoner of one randy American—one with a hard body, a big dick, and a vigorous sex drive. As much as this battle loss should have changed Johann's life, he felt that it hadn't changed much at all.

As tired as he was that night after a late mess, Johann was pushed into the tent that Lawrence had commandeered for his own use and fucked standing up and crouched over as Lawrence, bare-chested and the fly of his breeches unbuttoned, stood between the young Hessian's spread legs, Johann's breeches down around his ankles. Lawrence held Johann to him with one hand palming his belly and the other grasping his throat, and took the young Hessian prisoner in long, deep strokes.

Johann dangled there in front of Lawrence, from time to time the strength of the thrust pulling the young Hessian's feet off the ground. His arms just hung down from his sides from the weariness of what he'd had to do to endure in the operating tent that day. He could do little more than moan and groan as he felt Lawrence's deep thrusts inside him and both heard and felt the slapping of the man's big balls against his buttocks.

Lawrence came in big gobs of cum deep inside Johann's channel and then pulled out of him and pushed him down on the blanket-covered straw mat that would serve as a shared bed for both of them. Lawrence walked over and took a big swig out of a tankard of beer he'd brought into the tent for his own use—no tankard of beer for Johann, of course—and stood there, long, thick cock still in half erection and dangling from his fly, breathing heavily as he watched Johann lie back on the mat, throw his arms back, and moan and pant softly.

"By God, I needed that," Lawrence growled. "You kept me waiting for that all day."

Well, not exactly, Johann thought. Lawrence had fucked him hard even before taking him to the medical tents, and it wasn't like Johann was just sitting around and playing a flute all day and purposely putting Lawrence off.

"A sweet little body, a hole that can take me. That Hessian officer of yours must have had a thick one. Got you reamed right to my needs. I won't be missing Tom quite so much, I dare say. Ready to go again?"

Johann moaned and threw an arm over his face—as if hoping to be able to transport himself anywhere else than here.

"I didn't hear you, boy. I asked if you were ready to go again."

"Yes, sir," Johann answered in a tired, barely audible voice. This had been his life. There was nothing he could do about the inevitable. He did need a protector.

Lawrence came down on Johann's body, straddling his panting chest, and poking his cock at Johann's face. Johann sighed and opened his mouth wide to receive the shaft. This was easier to take than the ass play. Lawrence was still hefting the beer tankard and laughing a low, guttural laugh, as he began the rhythm of the face fuck.

Later, after Lawrence had taken Johann again in a side split on the mat, Johann lay in the American's embrace, Johann's rump nestled into Lawrence's crotch, both of them listening to the breathing of the other becoming more regularized, Johann hoping that Lawrence was spent for now—but Johann also beginning to melt to the attentions of this rough, but quite proficient colonialist.

"What do you do in life, Lawrence?" Johann whispered, wanting to know more about this man who now possessed him. "I mean when you aren't fighting the British. Do you have a trade? I heard that there are no professional soldiers here—not like the British have or the Hessian troops I joined back in Germany. I hear that most of the American soldiers are small farmers."

"Yes, I do have a small farm, but I also am in business near Philadelphia, down in Pennsylvania," Lawrence answered, his voice not as gruff as before. He was more mellow, not as much perpetually angry as he had been earlier in the day. Satiated, perhaps—Johann hoped—with the sex.

"A business?" Johann asked, encouraging the man to speak, encouraging him to be more human. And, indeed, although Lawrence's hands had begun to roam on Johann's body again, they more glided than grasped as they had done before. He wrapped one hand around Johann's cock and began to stroke it slowly. Johann sighed and nuzzled closer into him. Previously it had all been for Lawrence. He had shown no concern for taking care of Johann's needs too.

"Yes. I'm a master carpenter. I build houses. And you, little one. You're much too pretty and delicate to be a soldier. But the way you take cock—were you raised to lay under men? Did the Hessians snatch you off the streets of Hamburg and impress you into service? I've heard that's how they fill their ranks. Doesn't make for the best fighting unit."

Nor does just walking off your farms and into battle, as I've heard about the colonialists, Johann thought, but he didn't say as much. It was true that all kinds of men had signed with the Hessian troops, for many a reason, including bankrupt merchants, haberdashers, bakers, and even a poet, and that some of them had been impressed rather than volunteering. But he knew that Lawrence was right about him not being soldier material. He could shoot a Jäger rifle well enough, but he was not built for hand-to-hand combat. And these colonialists didn't follow the rules of civilized warfare. They were mean sons of bitches in close-in fighting. Now August, he had been built to be a soldier—tall and solid. Hard-muscled and fast in his reactions. But not Johann. It was probably true that he was best-suited for what Lawrence was now doing to him—what many men had done to him in the past.

The slow pumping of Johann's cock was getting to him and much of his attention was concentrating on the pleasure of what Lawrence was giving him there. He sighed and began to set his hips in slow movement, working with the stroking.

"I take what I have to take from men. I did not choose that. I suppose you could call me a master carpenter of sorts too," he answered. "I was an apprentice in pargeting back in Lüneburg, a town near Hamburg."

"Pargeting? What's that?"

"Plaster work. Fancy designs in house interiors and, in Germany, on the outside walls of houses. Only for the richest. But I learned to do intricate wood carving for interiors too. Oh, God, sir . . . oh God. Either take your hand away, or I'm afraid I'm going to—"

"Yes, I think you are going to also," Lawrence responded.

Johann was hard and feeling the sap rise inside him. He began to writhe against Lawrence, which caused the American to hold him ever more fast. Lawrence had Johann in the shape of a taut-strung bow in front of him. He had an arm under the young Hessian's arm pits, forcing Johann's arms over his head, and he had Johann's legs trapped between his powerful thighs. He was pumping Johann's cock hard and faster.

"We will make a good carpentry team then, when we get back to Pennsylvania," he growled in Johann's ear. "But now I am going to jack you off and, in return, you are going to ride my cock again."

And that's exactly what transpired. Lawrence held Johann fast until Johann had ejaculated with a cry—gloriously, the first such attention Lawrence had given him—and then Lawrence lay back on the mat, arms folded behind his head, eyes boring into Johann's, as Johann sat in the saddle and fucked himself on a shaft that never would seem to go flaccid.

He reasoned that, in time, it would not be as nonstop with Lawrence as this. The man was just reveling in a new toy. It had been like this with all the men who had fucked Johann. Even the captain had settled into not more than once or twice a night after an initial rampage of sex. Like any coupling of two people, Johann thought, it would eventually settle into a calmer routine.

Back in a postcoital embrace, Lawrence started asking the questions now. "You didn't tell me how you came to be in the Hessian forces. You aren't cut to be a soldier. No matter what you say, you are cut to give a man exactly what you are giving me."

More like taking from me, Johann thought. But he responded to the question asked. "I had to leave Germany. I got into a bit of trouble."

"Trouble with sex, I allow."

"Yes," Johann admitted after a slight pause.

"You have been known by many men, I would guess. It's what you are built for. You take a cock so nicely—a hole that opens right up to a real man's needs—that you cannot be a stranger for long to it."

"Yes, I have been known by many men," Johann admitted, sadly.

"Not as long and hard as you'll be known by me, I allow," Lawrence muttered, revealing a jealous, possessive streak that didn't surprise Johann a bit—and that prompted his next question.

"This Tom you spoke of who was lost in battle yesterday. Had you known him long?"

"Aye, I had. And I knew his ass as well as I'm ever going to know yours. He worked for me at my farm—from the time he was only begun to be a man. I kept him close to me. He joined with me and I saw to it that he was ever at my side—and under me at night—just as I'll do with you. I was the first man—the only man—to fuck him. And I kept him fucked right proper."

"Did he want to be a soldier—was he fearful of it? Did he have a swift death?" Suddenly, Johann was identifying with this Tom he would never know. How could he do otherwise, as clearly as Lawrence was declaring that he, Johann, was the replacement for Tom?

"Aye, it was a swift death. We were talking, waiting for the first salvo, and when it came, I looked around and he was collapsed at my side. Looked more surprised than fearful I'd say. And what would fear have to do with it? He was mine from beginning to end to do as I wanted with, and he died at my side. What else could he have wanted?"

What else indeed, Johann thought. What could he expect for what he gave you—what you demanded of him and forced on him? The one thing he thought he could demand of you was protection. And he died at your side, and you didn't protect him from the fatal bullet.

And here, Johann thought, I have been counting on protection from you. I have allowed you to possess me as you have for protection. Can I count on the same protection you provided Tom?

Lawrence was off the mat and foraging around at the corner of the tent. When he turned, he held in his hands what looked like a short chain with leather cuffs at each end.

"What is that?" Johann asked, taking a gulp, because he was seeing the fully naked body of Lawrence for the first time. Wiry but hard muscled. Showing the scars of either wounds or misadventures of his earlier life on his torso and bulging thighs. But powerful, lithe, and with low-hanging balls and a prominent cock still in at least half erection even after all of the work it had done inside Johann's body. His dark hair, curling around his nipples and then trailing down to a thick bush—and also prominent on his forearms and calves—giving him the aspect of a toned wolf.

Wolfish in his other appetites too.

"This? This is a hobble. For you."

"For me?" Johann said, completely surprised, expelling the air he had sucked into his body upon seeing Lawrence totally naked. He started to back off the mat, toward the corner of the tent, but Lawrence was upon him quickly and shackled his ankles in the hobble.