It was not the sight of their drawn features that caused Hawkwood’s throat to constrict, however. It was the colour of their jackets. Stained with dirt and sweat they may have been, but there was no hiding their scarlet hue.

The men in the wagon were British redcoats.

As if the uniforms weren’t sufficient evidence, the mounted officer and the six-man escort marching to the rear of the vehicle and the manacles the red-coated men were wearing left little doubt as to their identity and status.

As prisoners.

A voice called out from the onlookers.

“Who’ve you got there, Lieutenant?”

The mounted officer ignored the enquiry and kept his eyes rigidly to the front. The last man in the escort line was not so reticent.

“You blind?” he muttered sarcastically from the corner of his mouth. “Who d’you think they are?”

Emboldened, the questioner tried again. “So, where’re you taking ’em then? Home for supper?”

Someone laughed.

The wagon halted. The lieutenant rode his horse past the head of the vehicle. As he dismounted and entered the ferry office, the less reclusive trooper, cocky at having been nominated the fount of all knowledge, jerked a thumb at the landing stage. “Ferrying ’em to Greenbush. They’ll be quartered in the guard house before we move ’em on to Pittsfield.”

“Where’ve they come from?” a man standing near to Hawkwood asked.

The soldier sniffed and shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. I heard they were taken near Ogdensburg. We’ve only been with ’em since Deerfield. We’d’ve had to march the bastards if the lieutenant hadn’t commandeered the wheels.”

“Don’t look much, do they?” someone muttered in an aside.

You wouldn’t either, Hawkwood thought, if you’d had to march most of the way from Ogdensburg and then been shackled to the back of a bloody prison cart.

Hawkwood had no idea which British regiments were serving on the American continent and he wasn’t close enough to the wagon to get a good view of the insignia, though the green facings on a couple of the tunics suggested their wearers might have been from the 49th, the Hertfordshires, while the red facings could have represented the 41st Regiment of Foot.

The lieutenant returned. “All right, Corporal! Move them down to the landing. You can board the ferry when ready.”

As the driver released the brake and flicked the reins to nudge the horses forward, the escort shouldered their muskets.

“Here we go,” the talkative one murmured.

The novelty over, the spectators began to drift away and Hawkwood looked towards the men on the wagon. Pittsfield was, presumably, the nearest prison of any note where captured enemy were being held.