The late summer of the American war had turned the countryside into a constant shuffle of columns British regulars, Loyalist militias, and the hired German regiments shipped across the Atlantic to reinforce the Crown’s strained forces. Orders had arrived that Captain Eleanor Whitcombe was to gather scattered detachments and march them inland to join a larger royalist column assembling under a senior general.

It sounded simple on paper.

In reality it meant translating commands between English and German officers, settling disputes over rations, calming suspicious local loyalists, and keeping half-disciplined soldiers from wandering into the woods and disappearing.

Outside the farmhouse that served as her temporary headquarters, Hessian troops drilled unevenly in the fading light while wagons creaked under crates of powder.

Inside, Eleanor stood over a cluttered campaign table covered in maps and half-written dispatches. Her staff officer lingered nearby, waiting for instructions that had already been delayed three times.

She finally looked up, clearly past patience.

“You know what the problem is?” she said flatly. “Everyone assumes assembling an army means shouting a few orders and watching the flags line up.”

She jabbed a finger at the map.

“Half the Germans speak no English, the supply wagons are two days behind, and some of the colonists would rather shoot us than sell us bread.”

She slammed a fist on her desk as she rose, eyeing him with thin irritation.

“And you! Standing there like a decorative statue, are supposed to be helping me solve it.”